Lift Ev'ry Voice & Sing for an Afrocentric Pedagogy Of

Home , 2017 in music, Crooked Smile, Lute (rapper)

LIFT EV’RY VOICE & SING FOR AN AFROCENTRIC PEDAGOGY OF MUSIC

TEACHING AND LEARNING

David Wayne Robinson, Jr.

Dissertation Committee:

Professor Mariana Souto-Manning, Co-sponsor Professor Christopher Emdin, Co-sponsor Professor Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz

Approved by the Committee on the Degree of Doctor of Education

Date May 20, 2020

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education Teachers College, Columbia University

2020

ABSTRACT

LIFT EV’RY VOICE & SING FOR AN AFROCENTRIC PEDAGOGY OF MUSIC

TEACHING AND LEARNING

David Wayne Robinson, Jr.

Currently, Eurocentric theories and practices of urban teachers and students are often studied under a White gaze of expected deficits. Much of this research is quantitative (e.g., documenting the number of teachers of color); the qualitative research that documents the experiences of people of color usually lacks the personal lived experiences of racial marginalization that only one who has endured them can tell.

Addressing this research problem, in this dissertation, I share findings generated from a

9-month autoethnographic study of my experiences in light of the blockade of anti-Black epistemologies and ontologies in (music) teacher education.

Framed by Critical Race Theory, Critical Pedagogy, and Postcolonial Theory, the aim of this study is to examine the lived experiences and narratives of a Black-queer doctoral student and teacher educator—in dialogue with majority Black and Latinx

preservice early childhood and elementary students in his music teacher education course—considering how Eurocentric frameworks position teachers and students.

Inquiries into how curricular stories are constructed as mirrors and windows (Bishop,

1990) are woven to reveal the ways in which dominant theories and ideologies affect the discourses and identities of soon-to-be teachers and point toward the need for students and educators of color to be taught to analyze and name injustices documented within life histories, all the while transforming oppressive encounters to affirm individual and collective humanity.

While the focus of this self-study and autoethnography is the researcher, this ethnographic composition of teaching and teacher education is informed by the researcher’s teacher education practices, experiences, and learnings in the context of an early childhood and elementary teacher education course for non-music majors at a primarily-Hispanic serving urban institution of higher education. It examines classroom discursive interactions and archival data (e.g. journal reflections, course assignments) using ethnographic research methods and critical narrative analysis (Souto-Manning,

2014) to make sense of data. In doing so, it co-constructs a polyphonic space for multiple perspectives to stand in counterpoint (conflict), reimagining and reclaiming the discourses that purport to hold knowledge about peoples of color lived experiences.

Findings are rendered by engagement with a range of Afrocentric visual and multimodal data.

DEDICATION para Arden Street, Dyckman, NYC.

Gracias por todo,

Yuuuherrrdt!

-Deejay

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The most heartfelt moment of this entire project has been taking the opportunity to thank all of those whom contributed to its completion. While I will inevitably and inadvertently omit someone’s name from these acknowledgements; as we say down

South, “charge it to my mind not my heart,” it is my sincerest hope that everyone understands my deepest gratitude extends far beyond these pages and out to all of you that have carried me in this journey.

I would not have been able to make it this far, much less start this tedious journey without the unconditional love and support of my family. From my parents, Lee Smith and David Robinson, Sr., I have learned what it means to sacrifice and struggle, to love hard and long for peace and happiness. I am made in your images. Thank you for giving me life. From my aunties, uncles, y primas, I have learned to fully know who I am, to laugh, and to listen. For my brother, Tauquez Elfthaniel Mann, it often breaks my heart that you are not here in-flesh with me. Yet, I am so blessed that I feel your spirit and hear your voice every day, and every time I step foot in a classroom. Your love surrounds me in the stillest moments when I think I am alone. I know you and the ancestors are smiling.

I could not have done this without y’all. Two thumbs up—GUWOP.

PCNYC has provided me with a professional opportunity to teach in this extraordinary city, where I have gained 20/20 vision and respect for the work that is done in public education. I am particularly indebted to Eleanor Armour-Thomas and Daisuke

Akiba for their talks, candor, and support. Most importantly, I am eternally grateful to the

MUSIC 3000 students for providing me with the most creative, vulnerable, and joyous teaching experience of my life.

Although it may be seen as “brown noising” to say, I honestly cannot imagine a better dissertation committee than the one which I have been blessed to work with. I sincerely thank y’all for enwrapping me in your arms while standing on your shoulders.

Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz, my second reader, has been a healer from the moment I first met her. Just as important, she has respected me enough to listen and reaffirm my humanity. Thank you, Yolie, for helping me find my voice to sing again.

In Mariana Souto-Manning, my co-chair, I found a brilliant critical teacher educator, early childhood and elementary teacher, and above all, someone I call mi tia.

Her passion for critical dialogue, sharp tone, and keen analytics have been exemplars for me to follow. Thank you, Mariana for teaching me how to not only fly, but soar. And, insisting my questions can change me, and possibly the world. You are a miracle worker.

I hope to continue working with and learning from you in the future.

Without my quintessential mentor (or, is it preacher teacher educator) and co- chair Christopher Emdin, I would not have fully realized my potential, power, and freedom to complete this project. Chris, your tenacity to merge theory with practice by unapologetically owning and communicating your hood and academic identities helped set me free. I knew that I needed to work with you from the moment I saw one of your speeches on YouTube as a second-year graduate student at Boston University. Your guidance over the past three years have without question, been one of the greatest highlights of my graduate career and life. Additionally, your spiritual and intellectual

support have sustained me under the most oppressive and depressing conditions of my personal and professional life. Thank you for being a model of Black excellence.

To Teachers College (TC) administrators and TC music and music education program, thank you for the minor setbacks for extraordinary comebacks. Lights out.

To supportive colleagues afar, Shirley and Travis, your unexpected literature resources, advice and critiques, conversations and/or financial gift, made crafting this composition much more bearable. I am particularly grateful to colleagues and comrades near: Pablo, Lin, Ruth, Yan, Martin, and Mercedes for their sacrifices, hugs, meals, reassurances, organizing, and fight during this process. Your love and activism sustained me and fed my spirit.

This dissertation was written during what was the most turbulent period in my personal and professional life to date. As such, the only way I knew how to work through and make sense of trauma as an artist was to organize this composition as music—at times having shorter sentences, other times seemingly long verses before arriving at a cadence. This was a purposeful choice to account for the tonalities, rhythm, and improvisation of my experiences as representation of the rhythm & blues of a community that cared enough to listen and nurse me back to health; while loving me deeply enough to keep it real. Your music, support, friendship, and love have been the midwifery for a severely tattered spirit. Esto es para nosotras. Muchas gracias mi gente.

-Deejay

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter I-INTRODUCTION ...... 1 Background of the Problem ...... 10 Statement of the Problem ...... 10 Rationale for the Study ...... 16 Conceptual Framework ...... 19 Go Fo’ Broke ...... 19 Statement of Purpose and Research Questions ...... 26 Researcher Role/Positionality ...... 28 Definitions of Terms ...... 32 Significance of the Study ...... 35 Conclusion……………………………………………………………….38

Chapter II-ON TALENT, TESTS, AND TOILETS ...... 39 Whiteness and/in Music Teacher Education…………………………...... 42 A Literature Chorus of Hierarchy, Assimilation, and Racism ...... 46 Agents, Activists, and Transformation…………………………..50 Critical Race Theory and Functions of Whiteness ...... 52 Centering Afrocentric Epistemologies…...………………………54 Counternarratives ...... 56 CRT & The Property Issue and Curriculum ...... 59 Play……………………………………………..……….63 CRT & Reputation and Status Property ...... 65 Critical Pedagogy: Critical Cycle and Co-Teaching ...... 69 Problem-posing and generative themes ...... 70 Dialogical Learning ...... 74 Co-Teaching as Conscientizaçāo Creative Praxis...... 76 Postcolonial Theory and the Lumpenproletariat ...... 78 Go fo’ Broke: ...... 81 An Afrocentric Pedagogy of Music Teaching and Learning ...... 81

Chapter III-METHODOLOGY ...... 88 Background of the Study ...... 90 Research Design: Autoethnography ...... 95 Defining and Refining Autoethnographies...…………………….96 Evocative autoethnography...... 96 Analytical autoethnographies ...... 99 Autoethnographic (M)ode...... 101 Sources of Evidence ...... 103 Context, Setting, and Participants ...... 103 Unit of Analysis ...... 105 Data Collection Methods, Instruments, and Procedures ...... 105 Written data...... 107

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Audio data...... 108 Exploratory Study ...... 110 HOMEroom ...... 112 Racing the curriculum ...... 113 Data Reduction, Analysis, and Connections to Research Questions ...... 117 Critical narrative analysis (CNA) ...... 119 Limitations ...... 121 Conclusion……………………………………………………………...122

Chapter IV-AUTOETHNOGRAPHY ...... 123 Prelude ...... 123 10:12 AM ...... 129 Autoethnography……………………………………………………….130 i. context. child. curriculum ...... 130 ii. student studying music ...... 141 iii. music teacher teaching...... 153 Boston, MA ...... 161 Time Traveling...... 168 “Jus’ let us sing!”………………………..……………………...171 Physical warm ups: ………………………..………..172 iv. doctoral student in music teacher education ...... 174 Learning to Teach at Teachers College ...... 176 I AM DEEJAY ROBINSON ...... 183 Am I Next? Am I Now? ...... 187 Dis Shit is Toxic: Colonialisms Burns of White Supremacy ...... 193 ENCORE—What the Fuck is Really happening here? ...... 203 “Becoming Dr. Deejay,” a Review ...... 204 Different as Dangerous/ “Adversarial” & “Aggressive” ...... 208 “Documents of This Kind,” A Turning Point ...... 213 Define Themselves...... 215 Connections to Research Question ...... 218 Summary ...... 219

Chapter V-COMPOSITE STORIES OF PCNYC ...... 220 Intro— ...... 220 Ode: Imperfectly Perfect Student Teachers of MUSIC 3000 ...... 224 Public College New York City ...... 234 Scene: A Thing (Conflict) I Did Not Expect ...... 241 Analysis...... 245 Realities of Teaching (Episode 1): Where is the Conflict?...... 249 Analysis...... 259 Realities of Teaching (Episode 2): What will we do? ...... 261 Analysis...... 268 Brackets...... 271 Connection to Research Questions ...... 274 —Outro ...... 276

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Chapter VI-EPICLOGUE: THOUGHTS ON REIMAGINING...... 278 Conclusion…...…………………………………………………………277 Rap between the Consciousness of the Lumpenproletariat Stance ...... 282 Implications of the Study ...... 285 (Music)Education Policy……………………………………….284 (Music) Teacher Education Research…………………………..287 Early Childhood and Elementary (Music) Teacher Education…288 Limitations and Final Thoughts ...... 292

CODA…………………………………………………………………………..295

REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………295

APPENDICES Appendix A: Instruments of Data Collection ...... 329 Feedback and Evaluation Form Template ...... 330 Appendix B: Rap Sheet Template...... 331 Appendix C: Data Analysis Example ...... 332 Appendix D: MUSIC 3000 Course Syllabus ...... 335 Appendix E: Sample MUSIC 3000 Syllabus ...... 344 Appendix F: Name Tent Activity ...... 352

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

1.1 Go fo’ Broke…No Matter What Risk, a Conceptual Framework…………….....21

1.2 Research Questions and Guiding Subquestions………………………………….31

2.1 Property Functions of Whiteness in U.S. Music Education...……………………66

3.1 Overview of the Study…………………………………………………………...89

3.2 MUSIC 3000 Course Data Collection Table…………………………………...109

5.1 MUSIC 300 Composite Characters’ Racial Identity, Undergraduate Status, Minor

Interests…………………………..…………………………………….…………...223

5.2 Week 3 Feedback and Evaluation Responses (Music and Social)………….244-45

5.3 Week 8 Feedback and Evaluation Responses ………………………………262-63

5.4 Week 9 Feedback and Evaluation Responses ………………………………266-67

5.5 MUSIC 3000 Final Research Paper ………………………………………….273-74

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

3.1 Personal Communication………………………………………………………...92

3.2 Notes from 08/27/18 Meeting ……………...... 93

4.1 Playbill…..……………………………………………………………………...134

4.2 Playbill…..……………………………………………………………………...136

4.3 1990’s Poplar Springs Gospel Choir …………………………………………...141

4.4 Robinson’s Music Classroom…………………………………………………..164

4.5 Requiem Wall…………………………………………………………………..171

4.6 Co-Teaching Physical Warm-ups………………………………………………172

4.7 Personal Communication 2019, November 21…………………………………180

4.8 Personal Communication 2019, November 21…………………………………181

4.9 Facebook Protest Playlist………………………………………………………190

5.1 Personal Communication 2019, July 11………………………………………..243

5.2 Personal Communication 2019, July 11.………………………………...……..243

5.3 Brackets group Post-it paper cypher learnings…………………………………268

Chapter I

INTRODUCTION

I pay taxes, so much taxes, shit don't make sense Where do my dollars go? You see lately, I ain't been convinced I guess they say my dollars supposed to build roads and schools But my niggas barely graduate, they ain't got the tools Maybe 'cause the tax dollars that I make sure I send Get spent hirin' some teachers that don't look like them And the curriculum be tricking them, them dollars I spend Got us learning about the heroes with the Whitest of skin One thing about the men that's controlling the pen That write history, they always seem to white-out they sin. Brackets (Cole, 2018)

Most important of all, I would learn nothing about students if I didn’t listen to their music. So, I tuned into their favorite radio station listening to the Rap music, the DJ talk, the phone-in calls that weaved them together. I listened to the commercials, the advice, the attitudes that were being dished out. I began watching music videos… I found the Rap lyrics and the accompanying visual images, though sometimes offensive and shocking, and almost ritualistically misogynist, were also witty, ribald, catchy and often sharpened by a measure of social criticism and political commentary. I was delighted to find that the lyrics articulated some of the very ironies and contradictions that I myself observed as a researcher. (Ferguson, 2000, p. 16)

Yet, while their writings provide context and theoretical frameworks to view issues of access and racial inequality in music education, they lack the personal lived experiences of racial marginalization that only one who has endured them can tell. Open Letter to Minority Music Teachers (Robinson, 2016a, para. 10)

I, Deejay Robinson, a Black-Queer doctoral student and teacher educator- researcher (DTER) am concerned with the “immediate improvement of our practice”

(LaBoskey, 2004, p. 818) as teacher educators. Teacher education researcher John

Loughran (2004), lead editor the two-volume International Handbook of Self-study of

Teaching and Teacher Education Practice (S-STEP), contended that beliefs and practices must be epistemologically and ontologically aligned and the “self (however that might be described, from the individual through to the institution) carries a major responsibility in establishing this alignment” (p. 9). As such, this work is a self-study (Loughran,

Hamilton, LaBoskey, and Russell, 2004) about race and racism in music teacher education.

The aim of self-study is not to settle and confirm race and racism in music teacher education (Brown, 2004). Rather, it is to invite the educator and students within the bounds of the study as well as the collective field of educators to “provoke, challenge, illuminate” (LaBoskey, 2004, p. 818), to “better understand, facilitate, and articulate” (p.

857) the significance of race, racism, and entangled forms of bigotry (Kendi, 2016) in individual practitioners’ beliefs and professional knowledge. This is important because beliefs and professional knowledges are carried out through discourses buried in the design of curricular content, and the collective process of contributing to official teacher education knowledge to either reimagining unjust educational practices or continue the

“maintenance of race and class inequality” (Brown, 2004, p. 568).

I focus on the phenomenon of race and racism in teacher education because I teach a required elementary music education course (Music for Children Elementary

School) for racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse elementary education students

(who are not music education majors). As their teacher educator, I do not wish to replicate childhood lived experiences from Eurocentric educational ideologies and practices (Cannie, 2018; SanGregory, 2017; Xenos, 2014). Meaning, this study is created in the context of increasing numbers of students of color in public school classrooms

(U.S. Department of Education, 2017), the overwhelmingly presence of Whiteness in teacher education research (Sleeter, 2001a, 2001b, 2017; Souto-Manning, 2019a), and the increasing conflict between Eurocentric pedagogies and practices’ gaslighting effects

(Roberts and Andrews, 2013) on retaining teachers of color, on the experiences of students of color, and on the very architecture of teacher education (Achinstein, Ogawa,

Sexton, and Freitas, 2010; Nieto, 1994; Souto-Manning, 2019c).

This study takes place in New York City (NYC), where public schools are some of the most segregated in the United States of America (UCLA Report, 2014). Fifty-eight percent of NYC public schools teaching staff is White or of European descent (EdTrust,

2017; Integrate NYC, 2019; US Department of Education, 2017). Eighty-three percent of

NYC students are Asian, Black, or Latinx (EdTrust, 2017). As diversity increases, an overwhelming majority (86%) of NYC public school teachers believe they have a responsibility to makes sense of race and ethnicity and its implication on practice; however, only 29% of teachers receive professional development aimed at examining race and racism in education (Integrate NYC, 2019). This means that 55% of teachers feel underprepared to respond to issues of race and racism in school interactions

(Integrate NYC, 2019). This racial disproportionality, a foundational pillar of the architecture of schooling inequity, is reified in the New York Department of Education’s creation of a fair student funding formula implemented in 2007 to give more money to

4 schools in urban communities, which resulted in schools with higher populations of

White students receiving more money than their neighboring Black and Brown districts

(Disare, 2018; Integrate NYC, 2019). Such contrasts and problematics mark the landscape of this study.

Triple checking research to be sure, New York City is a situated representation of school segregation and racist ideas that pervade schools and schooling throughout the

U.S.; Meckler’s (2019) Washington Post article, found similar trends nationally noting,

“[W]hite school districts received $23 billion more than predominately nonwhite school districts in state and local funding” (para. 1). She continued, “while state budges gave heavily nonwhite districts slightly more money per student than they gave overwhelmingly White districts, in many states this was not enough to erase the local gaps. “[W]e still have a terrible inequitable system [emphasis added].” (para. 7). As such, situating my study within the context of New York City offers the promise of shedding light onto other contexts experiencing similar phenomena.

Background of the Problem

Teacher education researchers have established links between inequality in U.S. schooling to a lack of teachers of color (e.g., Achinstein et al., 2010; Cochran-Smith and

Zeichner, 2009; Gardner, 2010). Both music education researchers (Fitzpatrick,

Henniger, and Taylor, 2014; Hamman and Walker, 1993) and general education researchers (Goldhbaer & Hansen, 2012; Sleeter, 2017) chronicled higher academic achievement for students of color when in classrooms with teachers of color. Together,

5 research on general education teachers writ large (Villegas & Irvine, 2010) and music education teachers in particular (Bond, 2015; Nardo, Custodero, Persellin, and Fox, 2006;

Persellin, 2008) highlight that teachers of color (Hess, 2017a, 2017b; Ladson-Billings,

2000;) struggle to navigate institutional policies and practices that are historically, sociopolitically, and economically set in motion to maintain the status quo. This is so even when teachers complete coursework aimed at developing awareness of and teaching to learners’ diversities (Cochran-Smith, Villegas, Abrams et al., 2014; Lambert, 1985;

Sleeter, 2001b).

The maintenance of the status quo in teacher education is marked by Eurocentric

White-middle-class norms and values (Sleeter, 2001a; Souto-Manning, 2019). This status quo continues to be reproduced by the overwhelming Whiteness of the teacher workforce—82% of general educators and 86% of music educators are White (Elpus,

2015; U.S. Department of Education, 2017). To boot, 77% of teachers are women

(National Center for Education Statistics, 2017). Further compacting the conflict; in

2014, the population of White students in public schools fell below 50% with fifty-two percent of White students enrolled in schools overwhelming composed of White peers and teachers (U.S. Department of Education, 2017). By 2024, students of color are expected to comprise nearly 60% of the student population in public schools (US

Department of Education, 2017). Aggregately, data from the US Department of

Education (2017) projects a student population that will be more racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse than the increasing White monolingual workforce (Henderson &

RESI, 2018), offering the perfect conditions to continue upholding segregation in and by schooling.

The reality of a (re)segregated society lies in the privilege people made in one’s own image “while perceiving those who don’t as different and, frequently, inferior”

(Emdin, 2016, p. 19). In educational practice and research this means teachers and researchers are “often far removed, both geographically and psychologically, from the schools and students that they speak and write about” (p. 26). That is, they are likely to be disconnected from the values, practices, experiences, histories and legacies of the communities where their students live. This lack of connection, which often leads to the

(re)production of problematic stereotypes, is compounded by an unprecedented technological globalization facilitated by racist social media algorithms and “fake news,” which construct racially minoritized communities as Other, denying any sense of belonging and upholding (re)segregation (O’Leary, 2017). In music education, this

Othering is at play (Cooper, 2016; McCord, 2016; McKoy, 2006, 2009; Rosen, 2016).

McKoy (2006, 2009) extrapolated data from the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) and the Higher Education Arts Data Services (HEADS) to examine readiness of music students to implement culturally competent teaching in field placements after completing multicultural music teacher education courses. She found a bifurcation in beliefs of White pre-service music teacher licensure candidates’ and positive expectations of Black and Brown students. Analysis of findings produced

“greater concern” for McKoy (2013)—5.9% of White pre-service teacher candidates

“held beliefs that certain racial groups were less capable of learning than were others” (p.

387); 4.6% of White pre-service teachers believed Whites to have “greater capacity for learning than others” (p. 387). Media reports written later (Cooper, 2016; McCord, 2016;

Rosen, 2016) strengthened the validity and vitality of McKoy’s research findings.

Pathological portrayals of individuals and communities of color remain an ingrained and pervasive feature of the official narrative of music education. This was audible at a 2016 National Arts Advocacy roundtable in Washington, DC, where McCord

(2016) and Rosen (2016) reported the National Association for Music Education

(NAfME) president and Executive Director Michael Butera said Black and Latinx people

“lack keyboard [piano] skills needed for this field” (Cooper, 2016, para. 1) and are cognitively incapable of learning music theory (Talbot, 2018). As reported by the New

York Times, Butera attributed perceived deficiencies to underfunded public schools

(Cooper, 2016), which are staffed by an 86% White teaching force (Elpus, 2015). In this way, racist comments espoused by the NAfME president buttresses McKoy’s (2006,

2009) previous research of teacher’s self-reported cultural beliefs of racial groups being less capable of learning than Whites, espousing a biological inferiority paradigm

(Goodwin, Cheruvu, & Genishi, 2008).

In yet another example of pathological paradigms being embraced, music education sociologist Hildegard C. Froehlich (2007) highlighted biased beliefs aid in constructing perceptions of students of color as in cultural deficits while sanctioning

Western European epistemologies and ontologies “without questioning…sociopolitical and economic roots” (p. 85). In addition to the ideology of pathology leading teachers to have low expectations for students of color framing the capacity (or lack thereof) of individuals and communities of color, their beliefs also lead to curriculum being “based on White supremacist notions whose purposes are to protect White privilege and advantage in education” (Asante, 1991, pp. 171-172).

Research on music education practices in early childhood and elementary classrooms (Bolduc & Evrard, 2017; Bond, 2015; John, Cameron, and Bartel, 2016) and university lecture halls (Bradley, 2006; Bradley, Golner, and Hanson 2007) documents the pervasiveness of Eurocentric theories and pedagogies. A number of studies (e.g.,

Hall, 2000; Feay-Shaw, 2002) have connected individual teacher beliefs to institutional sanctioning of Western European Classical music in curricular textbooks, songbooks, and teacher education research. Relatedly, research has documented how—when present— music curriculum and materials have appropriated, misunderstood, and/or erased Arab,

Asian, and Black culture (Hall, 2000) and Latinx culture (Feay-Shaw, 2002), all of which marginalize Black and Brown students, their families, and communities (DeLorenzo and

Silverman, 2016; Fitzpatrick et al., 2014).

Music education research on the pervasiveness of Eurocentric beliefs and practices emerged feelings of isolation and marginalization in Black and Latinx students

(DeLorenzo and Silverman, 2016; Fitzpatrick et al., 2014) and fractured/contested identities (McCall, 2018; Robinson and Hendricks, 2018). As such, harm is being inflicted and must be interrupted. That is, there is an urgent need to remix practices in the urban music classroom (Allsup, 2016a; Fitzpatrick-Harnish, 2015). This is not only an urgent, but longstanding imperative. In 1963, Baldwin reminded us that if we “managed to change the curriculum in all the schools so that” Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) “learned more about themselves and their real contributions to this culture, you would be liberating not only…[BIPOC], you’d be liberating White people who know nothing about their own history (p. 683).

Paradoxically, centering Eurocentrism continues to be done despite research conclusively documenting the influence and necessity of Afrocentric popular culture, music, and epistemologies (e.g. Gospel, Hip Hop) when teaching Black and Brown students in music classrooms (Brand, 1986; Benham, 2003; Choate, 1968; Kruse, 2016;

Thompson, 2014) and general education classrooms (Ferguson, 2000; Delpit, 2012;

Emdin, 2016; Hill & Perchauer, 2013; Ladson-Billings, 2009a; Love, 2015). Because there is a strong connection between the home music backgrounds of students and future teacher interests (Perry and Perry, 1986; Rickels, Brewer, Councill, Fredrickson,

Hairston, Perry, Porter, and Schmidt, 2013) and with the recognition that such connection is likely to be present in music teacher education classrooms as someone who embodies

Afrocentric values, engages in Afrocentric pedagogies, and deeply values Afrocentric music, I engaged in a self-study.

As Cannie (2018) underscored in her self-study: “Perhaps, exploring my own journey in detail—exploring how systemic oppression ensnares one student and educator of color—will have implications for other students of color and offer insight to the teachers who are entrusted with their development and care” (p. 1). Relatedly, the aim of this self-study is to explore my own journey in detail, seeking to make sense of the problematic worlds of teaching and learning (Loughran, 2004) and understand how race, racism, and entangled forms of bigotry (Kendi, 2016) have implications on the structure of schools; the intent of curricular organization, content and objectives; the impact on interactions with students; and the myriad of ways teachers and students strive to improve our profession as educators (Brown, 2004).

Statement of the Problem

Simply stated, the Eurocentrism and White interests served by teacher education writ large and music teacher education, in particular, are the problems I center in this study, as it continues to harm BIPOC individuals and communities engaged in schools and schooling. Scholars in teacher education and music education have defined

Whiteness in teacher education as White ways and systems of knowing (epistemologies) which historically further White interests through normalizing White values equating quality to Eurocentrism that enables systemic racism to sustain White supremacy

(Bradley, 2015; Hess, 2015; Koza, 2008; Ladson-Billings, 2000; Milner, 2008; Milner,

Pearman, and McGee, 2013; Souto-Manning, 2019a). Bradley’s (2007) connection of

White supremacy and music teacher education is particularly pertinent to the problem being addressed in this dissertation study. Bradley (2007) explains how

the narrow focus on Western [European] art music found in many university music programs maintains the institution’s focus on White culture. The lack of substantive change in post-secondary music programs (despite profound changes in the school population that music teacher graduates will serve) assures the reproduction of Whiteness within music education…After four years or so in the institutional environment, we send them [teachers] out into the world somehow convinced that what they ought to be teaching is Western canon. (p. 148).

In addition to immersing students in Western European culture and canon,

Whiteness within the institution of music teacher education has been and continues to be ensured through admission policies favoring knowledge and performance of Western

European classical music (Koza, 2008), high stakes testing (Koza, 2003), and the Praxis

II music teacher licensure certification exam testing domain knowledge learned in university music education programs (Elpus, 2015). Such racist practices determine who

11 becomes certified (Souto-Manning, 2019b) informing how student teachers enter schools serving students of color (Souto-Manning, 2019a). It also determines who enters schools and what they teach. After all, we are likely to teach what we value.

The (re)production of music teaching and teacher education as Eurocentric endeavors has been documented by a number of research studies (Bolduc & Evrad, 2017;

Bond, 2015; Hess, 2013; John et al., 2014). Bolduc and Evrard (2017) have documented how, upon entering schools to serve majority communities of color, early childhood music educators with in-depth knowledge taught appreciation of Eurocentric instrumental and vocal music. Observing music education classes in early childhood centers in Illinois,

New Jersey, and Wisconsin, Bond (2015) unveiled Eurocentric pedagogies coming to life as highly structured instruction focused on individualism and competition; “children sang when prompted, often in keys that were not developmentally appropriate, and played classroom instruments to accompany their music teacher’s song” (p. 473) and “struggled to have meaningful musical experiences” (p. 471). The researchers’ observation of music practices upholds Hess’ (2013) work documenting Western European classical pedagogy as teacher-controlled and curriculum content largely based on replication, thereby upholding Eurocentrism in music education curriculum and teaching. This is not to say, however, that music educators have not engaged in multicultural education (Choate,

1968), activist teaching (Hess, 2018), and culturally responsive teaching (Lind and

McKoy, 2016) across time and space. For example, music education professors at the

1968 Tanglewood Symposium published their report offering inclusivity by providing alternatives to the Eurocentric curriculum.

Whether heeding the call issued by music education scholars for an alternative to music education’s Eurocentric curriculum or pressured by accreditation standards which required institutions to address diversity (Gorski, 2009), music teacher education programs added standalone courses on race, urban education, critical pedagogy, and/or equity (Abril, 2009; Campbell, 2002; Hess, 2015; Fung, 1995; Wasiak, 2009). Yet, standalone courses on diversity and multicultural education have been shown to be generally ineffective (Gorski, 2009; King, 2008). King (2008) critiqued add-on courses and multicultural curricular content as justifying pedagogical interventions on “moral grounds rather than on the basis of demonstrated long—or—short term individual or institutional changes” (p. 1113). In response, some students voiced the need for courses to do more to help students “understand race as a social construct that emerged from white supremacist ideologies” (Bradley, Golner, and Hanson, 2007, p. 302). While this tension persists, studies point toward the inadequacy of music (teacher) education courses and curricula (e.g. Hess; 2013; Wasiak, 2009), which do not center the voices, values, images, ways of knowing, and legacies of people of color and continue to orient to an

Eurocentric compass.

In addition to the Eurocentric orientation of music education as a field, Whiteness is ingrained in the composition of its faculty (Elpus, 2015). The demographics of music educators and music teacher educators matter because of the ability to foster change absent monumental racialized resistance (Hess, 2017a, 2017b; Ladson-Billings, 1998;

Love, 2017). Hess (2017a) followed four female K-8 music teachers (one of which was

Black) in Toronto, Canada as they engaged anti-racist pedagogy by (a) challenging assumptions, (b) naming racism and issues of equity in coded language of curriculum and

13 classroom talk, and (c) analyzing connections of music to politics. Aligning to Paulo

Freire’s critical pedagogy cycle (Freire, 1970), each teacher problematized discriminatory language arisen from student dialogue and created curriculum content to unlearn biased beliefs. Hess (2017b) observed a paradox; whereas administrators applauded the White teachers’ efforts, they reprimanded the Black teacher for implementing anti-racist teaching. “The result of such institutional disciplining” wrote Bradley (2007), “is that the very students who seek to become proficient in more varied forms of music making, and who might subsequently bring these alternative perspectives into their classrooms, are discouraged and sometimes barred from doing so” (p. 148). Similarly, within the context of the U.S., teachers of color enacting and speaking out for more just and equitable practices are misrepresented, marginalized, and have their ideas distorted (Ladson-

Billings, 1998), especially women (Love, 2017).

Race and racism matter not only in how one teaches, but also in who becomes certified as a teacher. For example, Asians, Blacks, and Latinxs are “significantly overrepresented among those who never passed the Praxis II licensure exam” (Elpus,

2015, p. 324); this is particularly the case for women of color and gives continuation to a long legacy of racism via testing (Souto-Manning, 2019c). All in all, music teacher education research (e.g., Elpus, 2015; Hess, 2017a, 2017b) excavated the barring of people of color through curricular sanctioning and coded language for instituting Western

European classical canon as superior, preferential treatment for White teachers who implement anti-racist pedagogy, and inadequate multicultural music education courses and curriculum.

The link between the overwhelming presence of White supremacy in music teacher education research and practice can be understood as part and parcel of the crisis of knowledge in teacher education as directly linked to the epistemological blockades of people of color’s lived experiences within Eurocentric frameworks for teaching and learning (King, 2008). Zeichner (2018) agreed, pointing to the “continued crisis of inequity in public schools” (p. 21) that denies children of color just and equitable education “despite the good work of many dedicated and talented teachers” (p. 21).

Research in teacher education has not adequately focused on developing knowledge about what teachers should know and be able to do to promote well-being for communities of color (King, 2008); music teacher education is no exception (McCall,

2018).

Here, it is important to note that researchers and teachers of color “recognize the connection between epistemology and methodology when justice is the objective” (King,

2008, p. 1098). Black people brilliantly transformed oppression and constructed visions of humanity, “to honor individuality, group heritage, and human freedom—at the same time—in spite of the depredations heaped upon one for being Black and poor” (p. 1101).

Or, whether in the classroom or at home, traditional African-American culture values individual accomplishment in the context of the advancement of justice and equity for the community (King, 2008). The culture of community contradicts prevailing individualism, competition, and deficit beliefs of educational purposes inherent in Eurocentric paradigms (Murrell, 1997). What, then, is missing in critical and qualitative teacher education research and practice asked King (2008), are effective ways to use the

“subjugated knowledge of the dispossessed” (p. 1123) as a liberation tool for healing

15 individual trauma and collective cultural well-being. This is what I sought to do in my dissertation study because “the subjugated knowledge traditions of Black people (or any other marginalized cultural group) as an epistemological resource for pedagogy, theory, or methodology in research, requires a revolutionary break [emphasis added] with the dominant societal episteme or system of knowledge” (King, 2008, p. 1099).

In her counternarrative Speak No Evil Talking Race as an African American in

Music Education music educator researcher Joyce M. McCall (2018) lamented,

I thought [Eurocentric] frameworks would help me out. If I am to be honest here, I thought that the frameworks would provide me with some capital in discussing race and racism. “I thought that would help me get to the core of the feelings of the participants” of my study—what it feels like to be Black in a PWI or music space. It’s frustrating because I don’t know how to best articulate how it feels to be Black…But now that I think about it, I think those theories got in the way of what I really wanted to say. (p. 22)

As I state the problem in the field which I undertook in this dissertation study, I argue that a blockade of Afrocentric epistemologies by Eurocentric ways of knowing in music teaching and learning is problematic; because, beliefs and music people of color herald as brilliant knowledge—outside of the classroom—comes from communities of color. This discourse is often erased, invisiblized, and delegitimized in music teacher education theory and practices (e.g., McCall, 2018; Robinson and Hendricks, 2018;

Robinson, 2016; Thornton, 2018). Moreover, Eurocentric ideas stamp (Kendi, 2016)

Black and Brown students, teachers, and researchers as problems and deficits from the beginning, accruing White interest to a foundational knowledge base believing Whiteness to be what is best. The intent of Eurocentric epistemologies as foundational is to inform music teacher education research and guide university courses and P-20 classroom curricular practices. Additionally, the impact on educators across racial identities

16 teaching from, operating under, or within a Eurocentric knowledge base has historically maintained mediocrity and boosted morality at best—all the while, and to varying degrees, sustaining traumatic effects on the individual and collective well-being of people of color.

Rationale for the Study

Teacher education researchers (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2009; Zeichner,

2018) set an imperative for 21st century pre-service teacher education programs: Abate the gap between theory and practice by developing extensive research and practical knowledge about the educational, economic, and sociopolitical realities that hinder student growth and diminish teacher effectiveness. Michele Kaschub and Janice Smith

(2014) posed the imperative as an inquiry to music teacher education,

What does it mean to be a music educator in the twenty-first century? This question must be answered from philosophical and sociological perspectives predicated on fluid conceptions of the nature of music, the potentially differing values assigned to that music, and the multitude of ways that humans interact with music in contemporary culture (p. 3).

This mandate has forced teacher education programs to focus on and research issues of discrimination (e.g., race and racism) as an inherent structural inequity to teacher recruitment and retention (as well as overall student achievement), given the dominance of White teachers and the growing number of Black and Brown students (Cochran-Smith,

2005; Darling-Hammond, 2016; Sleeter, 2001; Zeichner, 2018). Howbeit, Russell (2004) contended, “the theory/practice gap between teaching and research is just as great in teacher education as it is in education generally” (p. 4). Loughran (2004) too concurred,

“for numerous reasons, there has been a long history of research that has had little influence on practice” (p. 31).

“An educational phenomenon called the gap between theory and practice,” wrote doctoral student Xenos (2014) in his self-study dissertation, “is yet another illustration of how educational research and educational practice do not always coalesce in expected ways” (p. 14). Meaning, much of teacher education research writ large has focused on

“knowing about [theories] rather than knowing how [practice]” (Benham, 2003, p. 27).

“What we need, rather,” as cited by Sleeter (2001), is to focus on teachers’ classroom performance in schools where communities of color are and “investigate what happens through classroom interactions that significantly informs and develops teaching” (p. 220) reflexively (Loughran et al., 2004) and in real time (Emdin, 2016; Souto-Manning, 2014).

The educational gap between theory and practice is a “paradox” (Benedict, 2006;

Hess, 2017b; Ladson-Billings, 2004), which Baldwin (1963) characterized as “bad faith and cruelty…operating not only in the classroom but in society” (p. 678). Music education researcher Brand (1986) attributed the theory and practice gap to “the power of the home” fractured by “factors within the school” (p. 112) that lowered achievement for

Mexican-American children—and even some White ones (Perry and Perry 1986) in early childhood music classes. To reverberate Perry and Perry’s (1986) conclusion, perhaps the time is right for continued research on music teaching and learning as a pluralist society with a myriad of home musical styles and ways of knowing fill U.S. public school classrooms.

Beginning anti-racist teacher preparation courses at the university-level may be too late. Then, maybe there is hope in the early childhood and elementary music

18 classroom. Nardo, Custodero, Persellin, and Brink Fox’s (2006) data of 1,000 early childhood centers’ practices gathered from the National Association for the Education of

Young Children (NAEYC) disclosed the ubiquity of early childhood and elementary teachers tasked to provide music instruction for students. Many early childhood and elementary teachers gave music instruction without credentials or training in an instrument or in music education (Bond, 2015; Nardo et al., 2006). Still, Bond (2015) observed urban general early childhood teachers’ “intuitive music teaching” (p. 473)— singing songs and using music to gather students in the morning during circle time and during dismissal. This contrasted repetition and Eurocentric music practices prevalent in the other classroom Bond observed and within the early childhood and secondary music classrooms with a credentialed music teacher (Bolduc & Evrard, 2017; Hess, 2013). Even more in the urban classrooms, Bond (2015) noticed music met “student physical, cognitive, and emotional needs, particularly as an outlet of expression for students with special needs as a pathway to literacy. Music also soothed and energized students, holding their attention and made them question the world around them” (p. 472).

Additionally, the researcher articulated early childhood teachers’ belief of “the child as a capable being was clear [emphasis added]” (p. 477). Hence, she pondered, “how does one apply this belief to music without an understanding of what music capabilities children possess?” (p. 477), concluding: “Equipped with knowledge of typical musical development, teachers would be better prepared to identify behaviors and facilitate children’s construction of music knowledge. They also would understand better the potential effects of their music model” (p. 477).

It is important to understand that teachers need a knowledge base enabling them to teach in ways that foster students of color’s academic, intellectual, and social well- being without appropriating, degrading, or removing their cultural ways of knowing and being (King, 2008). Thus, if we care deeply about the current and long-term problems affecting the well-being of student-teachers and their students (LaBoskey, 2004), then it becomes imperative to engage in a continuous check for consistency between the theories, beliefs, and aims influencing real-time interactions and outcomes (Loughran et al., 2004). Perhaps developing strategies to solve educational problems rests with the very groups they most affect—students; and, teachers of color (Gomez, Rodriguez, and

Agosto, 2008; Nieto, 1994). It is then through self-study carried about by educators in their situated contexts that we,

Gain insights into the particular ways in which the normalization of inequity manifests throughout the educational system, gain understanding of the probable means of intervention, based on the unique histories of the persons and institutions with which we are involved, and gain a profound understanding of the theoretical implications that this local work has for educational practice and hence, for teacher education. (Brown, 2004, p. 568)

Said succinctly, there is an urgent need for more research by people of color with people of color theorizing unlearnings and learnings from our own experiences.

Conceptual Framework

Go Fo’ Broke

Self-study researchers are engaged in developing and testing theories about teacher learning through inquiry and investigation of one’s own practice (Loughran et al.,

2004). Though self-study researchers may construct conceptual theories from individual

20 lived experiences in local contexts (LaBoskey, 2004). Bullough and Pinnegar (2001) asserted, “public theory is crucially important” (p. 340). “Privileging private over public theory opens the door to romanticism and invites self-justification, two seductive outcomes that only stable data and rigorous analysis can constrain” (Bullough and

Pinnegar, 2001, p. 340). This critique led LaBoskey (2004) to articulate the need for educational researchers to be explicit about our theoretical stance and ensure

“methodologies are consistent with those theories” (p. 817).

“Go fo’ broke…No matter what risk” is a conceptual framework composed by the researcher (I, Deejay Robinson) and is inspired by Baldwin’s (1963) Talk to Teachers, critical race theory (Bell, 1989; Delgado & Stefancic, 2012; Harris, 1993), critical race theory in education (Ladson-Billings and Tate, 1995; Milner, 2008; Milner et al., 2013), the debt owed communities of color in teacher education (Ladson-Billings, 2005, 2006;

Ellis, Souto-Manning, & Turvey, 2019; Hess & Talbot, 2019), postcolonial theory

(Fanon, 1961), queer theory (Harding, 1993), Black feminist theory (Combahee River

Collective, 1977; Morrison, 2017), Chicana feminist theory (Anzaldúa,1987; Elenes,

2000), critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970; Souto-Manning, 2010), and Hip Hop pedagogy

(Emdin, 2016). Said another way, postcolonial theory, critical race theory, and critical pedagogy aid me and my research in historically making sense of local individuals

(DTER and student-teachers) engaged in the context and content of this research.

The multiple theories drawn upon are essential to framing this study because much of music education’s roots lie in submissive epistemologies of Europe and colonial

United States (Humphreys, 2010) allowing Fanon (1961) to resonate with research documenting experiences of youth in urban classrooms (Emdin, 2016). Ladson-Billings

21 and Tate’s (1995) critical race theory in education serves as a theoretical and analytical filter for historically viewing and making sense of students of color experiences in schools and schooling. Critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970; Souto-Manning, 2010) subverts the oppressive teacher education model of teacher as dispenser and gatekeeper of knowledge (Freire, 1970) through engaging community assets to dialogically co-generate

(Emdin, 2016) individual and collective action.

Table 1.1 illustrates the key readings I draw from to compose the conceptual frame for my study. I categorize the aforementioned theories into three broad categories, which compose the conceptual framework I title Go fo’ Broke…No Matter What Risk, employed to frame this study, Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing an Afrocentric Pedagogy of

Music Teaching and Learning. The framework is purposefully intersectional, as I am, and considers multiple, compounding and intersecting systems of oppression.

Go fo’ Broke…No Matter What Risk Conceptual Framework Theory Scholars/Readings Postcolonial Theory Fanon (1961)

Critical (Race) Theories Anzaldúa (1987), Baldwin (1963), Bell & Freeman (1989), Combahee River Collective (1977), Delgado & Stefancic (2012), Elenes, 2000, Ellis, Souto-Manning, & Turvey (2019), Harris (1993), Harding (1993), Hess & Talbot (2019), Ladson-Billings, 2004, 2006; Ladson-Billings & Tate (1995), Milner (2008), Milner et al. (2013), and Morrison (2017) Critical Pedagogy Emdin (2016), Freire (1970), and Souto-Manning (2010)

Table 1.1: Go fo’ Broke…No Matter What Risk, a Conceptual Framework

I made interdisciplinary connections to develop this framework, bringing together sociology, philosophy, history, women’s studies, legal studies, and more, developing a theoretical framework that is deeply critical. Fanon (1961) helped me account for the complexities of Blackness under colonial racism “as experienced,” as someone angered by the conditions of a colonized world, capitalist society, and educational system that

“exploited a mood of submission and inhibition” (Fanon, 1961, p. 4). Historians Fear-

Segal and Rose (2016) helped me connect submission aims of education in the United

States with research on The Carlisle Indian Industrial School (1879-1918) as a means to immerse Indigenous children in White Anglo-Saxon culture; of “dispossessing Native peoples of their lands and extinguishing their existence as distinct groups that threatened the nation-building project of the United States” (p. 2). Music education historian

Humphreys’s (2010) United States of American: Reflections on the Development and

Effectiveness of Compulsory Music Education unearthed roots of compulsory music schooling practices to “sixteenth-century Protestant reforms in Europe” (p. 121). Towards those ends, the European-style of music education in the U.S. began. Despite its pervasiveness, a study of 116 Mexican-American, Black, and White second graders (110 of whom were Black and Mexican-American), still preferred their home music after being immersed in European classical canon (Perry & Perry, 1986). Baldwin (1963) reminds me that Whiteness in education produced a racial class system making Black students “schizophrenic (p. 679), “menaces” (p. 680), created “dangerous rage inside” (p.

681), pushed Black children to become “a kind of criminal” (p. 681), and removed opportunities to “discover” (p. 681).

Critical race theory helps me make sense of the deficit informed research and continued inequality of students of color in public schools, by putting race at the center of educational analysis (King, 2008; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995), regarding racism as an everyday experience of most people of color because “white—over—color ascendancy”

(Delgado and Stefancic, 2012, p. 7) maintains the interests of the dominant group

(Milner, 2008; Milner et al., 2013). It helps me understand how society (Baldwin, 1963) and a former NAfME executive director (Cooper, 2016; McCord, 2016; Robinson, 2016;

Robinson & Hendricks, 2018; Rosen, 2016) may “racialize different minority groups at different times” (Delgado and Stefancic, 2012, p. 9).

Critical race theory is not without critique; King (2008) pointed to contentions of undertheorizing “actions that practitioners can use to develop a counter-hegemonic practice” (p. 1103). Possibly with this critique in mind Souto-Manning’s (2010) Freire,

Teaching, and Learning development of culture circles in teacher education extended the work of Paulo Freire’s (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Souto-Manning (2010) defined critical pedagogy as an asset-based educational framework situating schools within societies and considering the structural forces which influence and shape teaching and learning. An asset-based framework because it sees people of color as having historical and sociopolitical bodies of accumulated knowledge and capital (Yosso, 2005).

By positioning teachers as researchers and learners—co-influencers of systems of injustice and power to act and change it (Souto-Manning, 2010)—critical pedagogy is a stance for engaging dialogical learning (Freire, 1970) or co-generative dialogues (Emdin,

2016). Dialogical learning is not “a crafty instrument for the [authority] of one person by another” (Freire, 1970, p. 89). Dialogue is “a way of knowing” (Souto-Manning, 2010, p.

39) in which students and teachers co-construct knowledge through a process of problematizing institutional discourses and individual realities commonly perceived as the status quo.

“To have co-generative dialogues in a social field” requires “the belief that everyone who will participate brings tremendous value to the dialogue, because each has a unique perspective and vantage point. Those who participate in the educational [co- generative dialogue] are viewed as experts on their own unique relationship to the social field that is the classroom” (Emdin, 2016, p. 66). It requires Afrocentric ways of knowing, whereby stories are valuable in the construction of knowledge. Storytelling

(Bell, 2010) and counter-narratives (Giroux, Lankshear, and McLaren et al., 1996; Milner

& Howard, 2013; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002) help me document the history of oppression from an anti-Black society burdened by racial hierarchies and reclaims peoples of color as bodies of knowledge for creating curricular space speaking “truth to the contexts of

Black life beyond the dominant discourses of the time” (Au, Brown, and Calderón, 2016, p. 128).

Centering the individual and collective brilliance of people of color as experts is what we have in combining multiple theories into Go fo’ Broke…No Matter What Risk.

The hope is that the framework will offer a qualitatively different and critical affordance by acknowledging the difficulty of making the brilliance of people of color evident when working within a racist system to defy racism (Ladson-Billings, 2004). And, as argued by

Ladson-Billings (2004), the long-term objective is to examine not only the mis-education of children and teachers of color but that of White-middle class children and teachers,

25 some of them near 40 (Baldwin, 1963) “whose limited perspectives severely hamper their ability to function effectively” (Ladson-Billings, 2004, p. 11).

Unequivocally rejecting claims that (a) individual educators, specifically

“individuals in oppressed groups” (Hess and Talbot, 2019, p. 99) must engage in tackling responsibility to dismantle structural oppression, (b) one must act “independently of participating in and contributing” (Stetsenko, 2017, p. 215) to oppression, and (c) believe that incrementalism is not needed (Bell & Freeman, 1989; Ladson-Billings & Tate,

1995). In this light, a going toward justice and equity makes progress contingent upon each and every single individual—unconnected from situated contexts—"acting in isolation to change the world, or not” (Stetsenko, 2017, p. 215). I argue these contributions serve to blockade community practices and are disconnected from reality itself.

Nonetheless, this conceptual framework gives full credit to collectivity, communion, and action such, as critical pedagogues Freire (1970), Souto-Manning

(2010), Emdin (2016) and self-study scholars Loughran and colleagues (2004) belief in

“group talk” (LaBoskey, 2004, p. 835):

to separate expert from expertise, acknowledge what each participant knows, working together to learn from and with each other, moving beyond the traditional power structures in search of new and better ways to meet the needs of all learners (Laboskey, 2004, p. 838) from the vantage point of the insider…whose perspectives and the production of knowledge is derived from the direct involvement in the teaching-learning process. (Brown, 2004, p. 542)

Or in Baldwin’s (1963) words, “go for broke” (p. 678) from Whiteness in (music) education. “This is the only hope society has. This is the only way societies change (p.

679).

Statement of Purpose and Research Questions

Given the impact of individual beliefs and knowledge on practice, the effects of teacher interactions with music students of color within the courses taught, and the greater influence of Whiteness on institutional discourses and directions of music teacher education programs, the purpose of this study becomes driven out of the need of the researcher (I, Deejay Robinson) to share experiences of trauma as a doctoral student and teacher-educator (DTER) from an oppressed group—teaching student-teachers from oppressed groups (Zaffini, 2016; Xenos, 2014). This is so that other educators might see the gravity (Romaine, 2013) of examining the ways oppression interlocks with institutional discourses and individual narratives (Freire, 1970) and teacher practices

(Loughran et al., 2004). The path to do this rests with Self-study of Teacher Education

Practices (S-STEP) as a way for problematizing, dialoguing, and realizing practices rooted in the immediate specifics and particulars of race, class, space, and place (Emdin,

2016; Laboskey, 2004).

Research questions in self-studies are better described as contradictions, conflicts, tensions derived from or “created” (Loughran, 2004, p. 26) through particular approaches to practice. Loughran (2004) documented self-study research questions; or, inquiry questions (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999; Lytle, Lytle, Johanek, and Rho, 2018) as attempts to make sense of real-time interactions of teaching “rather than search for the correct response to a specific question” (p. 26). Loughran (2004) expanded,

investigating features of being a living contradiction and seeking to better understand the complexity of teaching and learning influence self-study in ways that a more traditional approach to the research question may not so readily encapsulate. This is not to denigrate a more traditional approach but rather to

highlight that recognizing the difference has much to do with what is being studied as much as it has with the purpose for that study; examining a tension, dilemma or contradiction then leads to a different form of research question and different conceptualization of a research program. (p. 27)

Acknowledging the contradictions of my identity, commitments, and values against the field where my research is situated and purposefully centering my own lived experiences, my study was guided by the following research questions:

1. What are the normative discourses (cultural narratives) in/of music teacher

education as a field? How do these position me (my identities, values, and

experiences) and my cultural wealth (deficits, traumas, surpluses) as a Black-

Queer male teacher educator?

2. What have my lived experiences been within and across music teacher

education? How does my identity reflect and/or defies dominant discourses in

music education?

3. What are the roles of my identity, cultural values, and community and familial

experiences in music teacher education? How do these interact with social

structures in place?

4. How have I identified, negotiated, and positioned my cultural wealth (deficits,

traumas, surpluses) in the teaching of music to elementary school teachers

within the context of music education course for non-majors taught at a

Hispanic-serving, undergraduate public institution of higher education?

5. How do my experiences, priorities, and epistemologies interact with and

contribute to the social history of music teacher education?

Researcher Role/Positionality

I am inspired by Green (2011), who makes sense of the muddled interactions of students and teachers in ways that humanize the complicated dynamic of writing,

rather than trying to write myself out of the unavoidable hierarchy of discourse in any ethnography…I recognize that I am a part of the story…I am consciously aware of being between and betwixt [in] an effort to understand and make meaning of situated and complex human actions and experiences through situated engagement within a particular context. (p. 158)

This means I lean into and jump in and out of my multiple positionalities: Black, queer, and DTER to make sense of my situated and complex actions and experiences. In this way, Black and Chicana feminist epistemologies unleash the femininity within my male queerness uniting my predominately female home upbringing. Additionally, my DTER role and position orients conscious awareness of the muddled relationships between being a professor and graduate student in teacher education.

As a graduate student, I have completed coursework in critical theory and constructivist theory (Brooks and Brooks, 1999); yet, I also struggled to construct a classroom that centers students and their words and worlds (Robinson, 2014, 2016).

Instead, daily structures of accountability and performance pushed me to rely on traditional lesson planning and deficit modes of thinking (Cochran-Smith, Villegas,

Abrams et al., 2015; Lambert, 1985; Sleeter, 2001b).

At Teachers College, part of my doctoral responsibilities was to serve as Student

Teacher Supervisor. This job allowed me to travel the boroughs of New York City facilitating the student teaching field experience for in-service and pre-service music

29 education licensure candidates. During this time, I witnessed enormous educational inequities as I observed students of color being educated in trailer parks located in parking lots of marble-floored public schools. I have been in, walked by, and live close to schools that look can be liked to prisons from the outside as well as inside (Raible &

Irizarry, 2010). I also know my relative position of accolade and privilege as a Black-

Queer Ivy League doctoral student and teacher-educator researcher at Columbia

University. And, the potential for my gaze to construct and perpetuate deficit and oppressive views of the students of color (Villenas, 1996). Meaning, I must

“unapologetically resist temptations” (Green, 2011, p. 152) to reinscribe assimilatory and deficit frameworks on communities of color by seeking to make sense of my own lived experiences as a person of color within historical and sociopolitical analyses of power hierarchies operating in counterpoint.

Within the S-STEP literature, scholars acknowledge the “inevitable limitations of individual interpretation” (LaBoskey, 2004, p. 820) and write students as innately as part of the study (Loughran et al., 2004). More poignantly, as attested by Loughran (2004), students are

fundamental in shaping and responding to the study, because the purpose of studying one’s practices is often linked to a desire for practice to impact student learning. Hence students’ views, understandings and participation are of more importance than ‘easily accessible’ or ‘simple data sources’’; students are fundamental to understandings of practice. (p. 22)

For Emdin (2016), teachers must first acknowledge fear-based narratives and act with courage, or humility (Freire, 1998) when working with oppressed students. Loughran

(2004) may have positioned courage as self-confidence and vulnerability, elaborating:

Choosing to examine any of these tensions as a focus for one’s own research, there is an implicit expectation that a real sense of self-confidence would be

necessary in order to carry through with the personally challenging and confronting aspects of so doing for the differences between the personal images of ones beliefs and the public images of one’s practice. (p. 23)

I concur and stand with Emdin (2007) who asserted in dissertation his own possessions and people of color to have valuable epistemological and ontological (ways of being, doing, practicing, carrying out) knowledge about education that are “intimate, reflexive, phenomenological, and experiential” (p. 19).

In formation with social justice education scholars who proclaimed the work of ensuring the lives of students of color matter both in and outside the music classroom calls for educators to engage in critical transformative praxis (Freire, 1970; Souto-

Manning, 2019a) that contextualizes the historical and present assaults on communities; co-constructs tools with students for re-claiming ownership of their individual and collective cultures, histories; and centers student voices as a means to remember and remember (Dillard, 2008) our assets as valuable knowledge to the intellectual space (hood) as opposed to waiting for larger society to liberate us.

Informed by the understanding that self-study is more likely to be valuable if learning outcomes are a collective task (Loughran, 2004) and thus attending to the need to account for ways students frame experiences differently from teachers (Bullough and

Pinnegar, 2001; Laboskey, 2004), I developed guiding subquestions to help me account for my positionality pertaining to each guiding question, thereby further exploring the lived interactions between theory and practices (Zaffiani, 2016). The subquestions were meant to render visible the process and role of my co-generative interactions with students as I undertook my study and sought to address my research questions (Bullough

& Pinnergar 2001).

Research Questions Guiding Subquestions

What are the normative discourses a. Who are my students? (cultural narratives) in/of music teacher b. What are their home education as a field? How do these position backgrounds? me (my identities, values, and experiences) c. What deficits/trauma do they and my cultural wealth (deficits, traumas, bring as student-teachers? surpluses) as a Black-Queer male teacher educator?

What have my lived experiences been a. What surpluses do my student- within and across music teacher teachers carry? education? How does my identity reflect b. How do student-teachers share and/or defies dominant discourses in music their surpluses? education?

What are the roles of my identity, cultural a. What knowledge do student- values, and community and familial teachers have of music education experiences in music teacher education? practices? How are do these interact with social b. How do student-teachers structures in place? experience my practice of music teaching? c. How and/or in what ways does knowledge of their surpluses and deficits play out in their practice? d. What lessons do student-teachers learn? How have I identified, negotiated, and a. What feedback and evaluation positioned my cultural wealth (deficits, do student-teachers give me? traumas, surpluses) in the teaching of b. What frames are student- music to elementary school teachers within teachers using? the context of music education course for c. What reasons do student- non-majors taught at a Hispanic-serving, teachers give for their frames? undergraduate public institution of higher d. How do student-teachers attempt education? to align frames to practice?

How do my experiences, priorities, and a. When and where does conflict epistemologies interact with and contribute arise? to the social history of music teacher b. How do student-teachers react to education? conflict? c. How and in what ways do students play through conflicts?

Table 1.2: Research Questions and Guiding Subquestions

The guiding subquestions (see Table 1.2) helped me emphasize “the embodiment of the qualitative researcher as the primary tool in addition to the development of rigor through credibility and trustworthiness” (p. 1), accounting for my “immersion, intuition and creativity” as researcher (p. 4). It allowed me to present “a more complete, holistic and authentic study” (Janesick, 2001, p. 539). I applied “intuition and creativity through reflection, consideration, thought and reflexivity” (p. 4). Students’ insights, perspectives, experiences, and identities helped me engage in this process.

Taking up the concept of re-membering, Lyiscott (2015), who echoed activist

Stokely Carmichael who demanded I take my brokenness, Black-Queer, former elementary general music teacher, current doctoral student at an Ivy League university, teacher educator-researcher at a CUNY institution, son, cousin, and brother of a 20-year- old male murdered by gun violence— and (enw)rap all parts by “standing in the midst of where folks think I am most broken” and “show them that we are whole” (Lyiscott, 2015, p. 29)—and hold knowledge for transforming teaching and learning toward justice and equity. This is what I sought to do in this study.

Definitions of Terms

In this section, I define key terms employed in this dissertation. I do so as White interests tend to be privileged and define terms in opposition to Afrocentric aims, which are centered in this study.

• Afrocentric: epistemologies and ontologies derived from the Global South,

specifically African, Arabic, Caribbean, Latinx, and Southeast Asian lands. At

times used as synonymous with Black and Blackness.

• Assets/Surpluses: the standpoint of communities of color as brilliant bodies of

capital (Yosso, 2005).

• Black or African-American/Blackness: Black is a racialized category (Omi &

Winant, 1999) of people having origins in Africa (U.S. Census, 2018). Blackness

is Black ways and systems of knowing (epistemologies) which historically further

Black social, economic, and political power through healing and co-creating

freedom and justice for Black people and liberation from White supremacy (Black

Lives Matter, 2019).

• Communities/students/teachers of color: Asian, Arab, Black, Indigenous, and

Latinx collective peoples. Also, nonwhite. At times, referred to as BIPOC (Black,

Indigenous, People of Color).

• Deficits/Trauma: the standpoint or paradigm which renders people of color as

being full of inadequacies—some cultural, intellectual, and emotional.

• Doctoral student and teacher educator-researcher (DTER): this is how I

define my contradictory roles and (often) tenuous positioning. I am both a

doctoral student connected with an institution of higher education as a student and

a teacher education-researcher. Both are facets of my responsibility/occupation, to

simultaneously teach a teacher education course and learn about teacher education

and about conducting research. It is a space of becoming and being all at once.

More critically in line with critical theory and pedagogy, a DTER actively detects

and deters oppression. Both/and are necessary.

• Epistemology: ways of knowing, systems of knowing, the nature of knowing,

knowledge, and/or theories that constitute belief systems.

• Eurocentric: epistemologies and ontologies derived from European lands. At

times used synonymously with racist, Whiteness, and White supremacy. As

Asante (1991) defined, “Eurocentricity is based on White supremacist notions

whose purposes are to protect White privilege and advantage” (p. 171).

Eurocentricity equates Europeans (of European approximations) to humans,

rendering BIPOC as not being human. “This explains why some scholars and

artists of African descent rush to deny their Blackness; they believe that to exist as

a Black person is not to exist as a universal human being” (p. 172).

• Lumpenproletariat: Black and brown colonized peoples under French colonial

rule for Algeria (Fanon, 1961).

• Ontology: ways of being, doing, and/or carrying out knowledge and beliefs in

practices.

• Race: a social construct of categorizations of peoples based on phenotypic

characteristics historically determining social, economic, and political power

hierarchies (Harris, 1993; Omi & Winant, 1999).

• Racism: the use of power to engage issues of language, sexual orientation, class,

gender, ability, religious, and ethnic oppression—not solely based on phenotype

(Bradley, 2007; Kendi, 2016).

• Urban: serving large populations of lumpenproletariat and restricted under

mandates (Milner, 2012, 2014; Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2011).

• White/Whiteness: A racialized category (Omi & Winant, 1999) of people having

origins in Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa (U.S. Census, 2018).

Whiteness is White ways and systems of knowing (epistemologies) which

historically further White interests through normalizing White values equating

quality to Eurocentrism that enables systemic racism to sustain White supremacy

(Bradley, 2007; Harris, 1993; Hess, 2017; Koza, 2008; Ladson-Billings, 2000;

Milner, 2008; Milner et al., 2013; Souto-Manning, 2018).

Significance of the Study

The significance of this study lies in the fact that it will contribute a much-needed, yet missing narrative in music teacher education research: the racialized experiences, identities, and positionings, of a Black-Queer male be(com)ing teacher educator (DTER) in light of Eurocentric the normative discourses (cultural narratives) in/of music teacher education as a field, documenting my lived experiences within and across music teacher education. Although self-study researchers (Ham & Kane, 2004) explain how self-study practitioners and research have been “variously ignored, used, patronized, and even colonized by outsider researchers, and as a result whole landscapes of knowledge have been at best left unexplored and at worst unwittingly pillaged as knowledge spoils for the researcher rather than the practitioner community” (p. 108). This research then is a methodology of resistance, whereby I center my identity and seek to identify the

36 positioning of identities, cultural values, community and familial experiences. To be sure, only a person who has experienced the racism of music education can aptly explore its situated nuances, depth, and harm.

Significantly, my study affords a necessary rethinking of music teacher education teaching and learning as well as a much-needed problematization of the Eurocentricity of the theoretical and methodological canon of research in music education. To be sure, “a claim to be studying oneself does not bring with it an excuse from rigor” (Bullough &

Pinnegar, 2001, p. 15); instead, it affords the inclusion of narratives which have been deliberately silenced and tenaciously ignored in and by music teacher education research, teaching, and practice—in this case, those of a Black-Queer male DTER within social structures build upon the desirability of Eurocentrism.

In societal and institutional contexts where race and racism are linked to school funding in inequitable ways, whereby the increasing number of students of color learning about music heroes with the Whitest of skin (Cole, 2018), and teacher experiences, knowledge, and beliefs create curriculum lacking the personal lived experiences of racial marginalization that only one who has endured it can tell (Robinson, 2016), the most significant contribution of this study lies in the answer to this question: What might one

Black-Queer doctoral student and teacher educator-researcher at one college music teacher education course and his ethnically, linguistically, and racially diverse student- teachers learn from being in-tune to students’ music (Ferguson, 2000) while attending to and being explicit about the dissonances acting as counterpoint to practice? The answer to this question is significant not only to music teacher education, but to the field of

37 teacher education writ large. This promise lies in imperfect practitioners problematizing the prevalence of practice that peripheralizes justice (Philip et al., 2019).

Yet, as Ham and Kane (2004) explained,

It would be a fault of logic, not to say occupational arrogance, to assume that simply because one is a teacher, that [they] has neither the intellectual capacity, the awareness of educational issues, nor the academic background to have a clear sense of what [they] might be in [the face] of public knowledge…Have you viewed your own experience with fresh eyes, seen your practices as others might and, have you tried to make the richness of your own experience of relevance and significance not only to you but also to your critical peers? The test is not one’s ability to be knowledgeably empathetic but ones capacity to be comprehensively self-critical. (pp. 129-130)

As such, aiming to be comprehensively self-critical, the hope and significance of this study begins and ends with an expectation to contribute to understandings of how the racialization of music teaching and learning shapes the experiences of a Black-Queer music teacher educator (DTER), positions soon-to-be teachers and (eventually) shapes the education of their future students. That is, to name, engage in an in-depth exploration—making sense of the trials and tribulations through a go for broke epistemology complicating traditional Eurocentric anti-Black discourses—and to problematize oppressions in ways that urge the field to right its wrongs as a matter of justice.

Conclusion

In this chapter, I introduced my dissertation study. In doing so, I explained the origins of my interest in the topic, offered background to the study, stated the problem being addressed, and elucidated my research questions, which served as my North Star. I

38 also addressed the significance of my study and its potential contributions. In the following chapter, I offer a description and analysis of pertinent literature to elucidate the construction of the problem addressed by this dissertation study. I do so coherent with my conceptual framework, via storytelling.

Chapter II

ON TALENT, TESTS, AND TOILETS

It’s the fault of the people who hold the power because they have deliberately trained your father to be a slave. And they deliberately calculated that if he is a slave, YOU gone be a slave…And it will go on forever and slavery will last a thousand years which the slaveholder said and believed. And now the bill is in. And they want me and you to have sympathy and understanding. I understand it all too well. And I have all the sympathy in the world for that spiritual disaster. But, I have no pity. The billing is in. We paid it. Now it’s your turn. -Rap on Race (Baldwin in Baldwin & Mead, 1970 in reelblack, 2017).

I paid too much for it and I deserve to do whatever I want to do with it. -James Baldwin & Nikki Giovanni in Conversation (Giovanni, 1971 in thepostarchive, 2019).

Was told to stay low. Keep firing. Keep extra clips for extra shit. -Kick in the Door (Notorious B. I. G., 1997/2004)

The title of this chapter—On Talent, Tests, and Toilets—is inspired by the research of a Black man, Horace Mann Bond; former minister, teacher, professor, Dean of Atlanta University, President of Fort Valley (Georgia) State College, and Lincoln

University (Gates and Higginbothman, 2004). Dr. Bond’s research on high school students serves as a historical narrative to frame socioculturally and historically anti-

Black (Au et al., 2016) or Eurocentric knowledge, beliefs, and practices in music education (Humphreys, 2010) and aids in connecting the need for critical race theory,

40 critical pedagogy, and postcolonial theory for a Go Fo’ Broke conceptual framework of music education.

Dr. Bond dedicated his life’s work unearthing racist intent behind standardized testing as a historian and sociologist of education (Gates & Higginbothman, 2004; Urban,

1989). To be clear, Bond did not directly call those who created standardize tests racist, but “the cause of any deficit in Black scores in relation to Whites was environmental”

(Urban, 1989, p. 324). Meaning, the power of the test takers’ home culture—the sociopolitical and historical upbringings of the child—in both schooling and society explains differences in proficiency on exams. Or, “low scores when put alongside their academic success meant that the tests were measuring background and not abilities” (p.

331). To reach his conclusions, Bond conducted hundreds of IQ tests and analyzed

United States data of youth awarded the National Merit Scholarship (Urban, 1989).

Bond’s (1957) lecture The Search for Talent, originally delivered in the 1920s defined merit as the quality of being good or talented in a domain measured by performance on standardized tests. Similar to music talent measured on the Praxis II music teacher education licensure exam (Elpus, 2015) and evaluations of music teacher faculty in higher education (Parkes, 2008, 2010, 2015; Payne, Burrack, Parkes, and

Wesolowski, 2019). In his study, Bond (1957) noticed students scoring the highest on

U.S. national merit test tended to be from very specific places on the map. For example, only 5,000 children across 32 U.S. cities had been awarded the National Merit scholarship. In Georgia, where Bond was employed, only 54 students were named talented and only 13 of the 159 counties within the state were represented. Similar results were found in Kentucky where 63 youth were deemed talented. Here’s where Bond found

41 a connection. In Kentucky, just like Georgia, Virginia, and Illinois, ALL youth deemed talented came from homes that had indoor plumbing—that is toilets inside their houses.

Eight-seven percent of Kentucky residents lived in the city with toilets in homes.

All 63 of the youth deemed talented were from the city while no youth from rural mountain regions of the state were deemed talented —settings where outhouses were most common. This matched National Merit award results from Chicago, Illinois with no talented children were found in the “slums; the Black belt, the stock-yards, and the poor mid-west wards” (Bond, 1957, p. 2). Out of the almost 10 million Black people in the

American South, “no child” (Urban, 1989, p. 330) was worthy of being named talented.

Elpus’s (2015) quantitative data on national music test scores and Parkes (2008,

2010, 2015) quantitative studies on the construction and effectiveness of music assessments affirm Bond’s (1957) research findings within the context of music education. In his causal-comparative study, Elpus (2015) analyzed 20,521 United States pre-service music teacher Praxis II scores from 2007 through 2012. Tests scores were first separated and analyzed into two data sets, pass and fail. Then Elpus compared the results to the entire population of teachers as well as the U.S. population as a whole. The data revealed that music teachers are 86.2 % White. Of the 94.14% pre-service teachers enrolled in university-based teacher education programs, 85.8% of White students met or exceeded the national passing score “on at least one attempt” (p. 323). Conversely, people of color were significantly overrepresented among those who never passed the

Praxis II exam. This quantified the restricting of women of color who consistently score below the medium passing score; and, Black women who rarely pass the praxis test on the first and subsequent two attempts (see also Hendricks and Dorothy, 2018).

Elpus (2015) remarked, the licensure tests provide support to the notion that the

Praxis II music exams are “valid measures [emphasis added] of the knowledge learned in postsecondary music education degree programs” (p. 323). Teacher educator researcher writ large Souto-Manning (2014) asked “for whom” are measures of teacher education valid? To which music teacher educator Parkes (2015) responded, examinations “can be rewarded within the promotion and tenure” (p. 119) within university systems of merit.

Given how white privilege has been disguised as meritocracy, as unveiled by Au (2016) through the frameworks of racial project and neoliberal multiculturalism, it is clear that measures of teacher education and certification protect the interests of whiteness (Souto-

Manning, 2019c).

Whiteness and/in Music Teacher Education

Demographically, music and music education is a field comprised of 72% of music professors who are White (College Music Society, 2015). In a study of the methods used to evaluate music faculty and whether achievement measures impacted student progress, Parkes (2015) asked (1) how are United States music faculty being evaluated for their teaching?, (2) how are faculty evaluation instruments examined for validity and reliability?, (3) are student learning outcomes or progress part of evaluations?, and (4) how are student learning outcomes or progress examined for validity and reliability? Of 412 surveys e-mailed to music faculty department directors and program heads, 142 responded, comprising a 34% response rate. To answer questions one and two, the researcher documented, the majority of music institutions designed their

43 own assessment measures “specifically for the music faculty” (p. 124). And, 76% of respondents reported “the form used for music faculty had not been examined” (p. 121) for validity and reliability.

Regarding student input, 91% of music administrators reported: “teachers can opt out of participating in student ratings/evaluations” (p. 121). Moreover, of the music programs that do use student ratings and evaluations, 93% of the student progress measures “had not been examined for internal consistencies” (p. 122). Additionally, 37% of music administrators responded that making decisions for tenure as the single most important use of faculty evaluations, while 31% positioned evaluations as improving teaching effectiveness. This means an overwhelmingly White majority of administrators in music departments and programs design and deem valid measures of assessments of talent based on the convergence of their elite interests (Milner, 2008; Milner, Pearman, &

McGee, 2013). And, their tests of talent are rarely examined for internal and external validity and reliability.

The lack of internal and external checks of trustworthiness of assessments designed by majority White music educators then serves to conserve what they deem to be valid measures of talent and learning expectations under Western European systems that dis-positions student interests. Or, the “do what I say” music masters calcify their talent, power, and privilege at the expense of students and teachers of color, including many Whites too. Through an entangled system whereby Whiteness and musicianship are regarded as property (Harris, 1993), a system of inequities that excludes Afrocentric ways of being and systems of knowing is then supported. The reasons for a lack of reliability and validity in music tests, as previously referenced by Parkes (2010) is centered in

44 music teachers [being] against systemic evaluation because they fear results will exposure of poor teaching (p. 102; see also Colwell, 1971, p. 41). Or, as Parkes (2008) adhered, “work hard and do as I say and I will correct all those bad habits and make you perform correctly…. It seems that the traditions of music teaching have remained mostly static at the college level [because] this is the way things still operate…and there is no perceived need for change” (p. 80). This is how systems of oppression are reified over time, by sponsoring processes of assimilation, subjugating endarkened epistemologies, and treating White interests and White privilege as the “legitimate and natural baseline”

(Harris, 1993, p. 1714), assessing its students’ knowledges and practices ethnocentrically

(Souto-Manning, 2010).

The Western music conservatoire has been in the business of conserving tradition for hundreds of years. Performance disciplines such as music are usually taught via the master-apprentice model, whereby the student comes to learn once a week in a very focused complex environment…with the master teacher, typically a recognized performing artist, refers to technique, musicianship, and stylistic features… [students are] graded by an unspoken global system between expert faculty…Almost all musicians in Western art music genre have learned their musical skills through this traditional method, and by speaking about Western art music, popular music and informal learning are excluded because those teaching and learning setting are usually markedly different. This indicates that when a faculty group get invested and involved with that they are looking for in student achievement, they can create assessment tools that meet their needs [by] outlining for themselves what excellent performance should look like and then bring these expectations to their colleagues and students. (Parkes, 2010, pp. 101-104)

To be sure, research (e.g., Parkes, 2010, 2015; Elpus, 2015) clearly positions the assessment of music talent rooted in Western European philosophies of a White master whose responsibility is to improve the talent of the apprentice student. Concomitantly,

BIPOC students and teachers home cultures are positioned outside of the music education program and often pathologized, being marked as informal and different from the

Western European canon (Bond, 1957); as such, the music and musical practices of communities of color, albeit rich, are thereby excluded by faculty who are not invested in ways of knowing outside of Eurocentric beliefs and practices. As Bond (1957) warned:

If we continue to provide the best schools, for the most literate families in the best favored sections of the city, or states (as we do, almost everywhere in the United States; and if we develop a special system of assistance to the children who, have the greatest facility and practices…[they] will inevitably win all of the scholarships—we shall have gone far in perpetuating a class system in this country that greatly resembled the hierarchy of birth still operative to great extent in Europe. (in Urban, 1989, p. 330)

That is, if mostly White music administrators continue to design valid measures of assessment in alignment with European epistemologies, then music teaching and learning students will continue to marginalize and exclude people of color. While this paints a bleak picture, unfalteringly locating music education in alignment with the aims of White superiority, what the numbers miss are lived experiences of systemic exclusion of people of color from becoming credentialed teachers (Elpus, 2015), communities of color characterized as musically incompetent and lacking skill (Cooper, 2016), in need of remediation (Dorothy & Hendricks, 2018), deemed not talented (Bond, 1957), and unempowered by the un-useful instruction of master teachers (Parkes et al., 2017). This missing albeit important lived experience is centered in this dissertation study.

To situate the lived experience within the context of music teaching and teacher education, in the following section, I undertake a review of pertinent literature, guided by the question: how and to what extent do traditional music teaching and learning resemble

Eurocentric hierarchies that dehumanize the well-being of teachers of color? I organize the section below historically, drawing on historical and education scholarship.

A Literature Chorus of Hierarchy, Assimilation, and Racism in U.S. Music

Teaching and Teacher Education

Historian Ibram X. Kendi (2016) defined a racists idea as “any concept that regards one racial group as inferior or superior to another racial group in any way” (p. 5).

Kendi upended six centuries of common myths about racism in his book Stamped from the Beginning. Racist ideas come from two groups: segregationist and assimilationists.

Segregationists blame people of color themselves for racial inequality—e.g., Blacks and

Latinx people are labeled musically inept—thereby separate and not equal—to the White executive board of NAfME and the music education teaching force (Cooper, 2016;

McCord, 2016; Rosen, 2016). Assimilationists, on the other hand, tend to point to environment, discrimination, and/or culture as the sources of negative behavior (Kendi,

2016)—e.g., in underserved public schools staffed with majority White teachers needing to control and police urban youth (Raible & Irizarry, 2010). As such, assimilationists constantly encourage and sometimes force people of color to adhere to White cultural norms (Goodwin et al, 2008; Kendi, 2016).

Music education historian Humphreys’s (2010) United States of American:

Reflections on the Development and Effectiveness of Compulsory Music Education connects European assimilatory compulsory music practices to 16th-century Spanish missionaries teaching religious music to Indigenous and Latinx children in New Mexico and the Southwest. The influences of the Spanish missionaries and “the early British

Calvinist colonist of New England” (p. 123) played influential roles in the establishment of U.S. music education practices. Said another way, colonialism, firmly rooted in racial

47 capitalism, served a pivotal role in music education in the United States. Deeply informed by Humphreys (2010), I briefly chronicle this below.

In 1642, British Calvinist colonists, or New England Puritans, enacted the first education law maintaining that schooling was a “device for promoting uniformity”

(Humphreys, 2010, p. 122). In 17th-century colonial United States, the church was the moral and social center and congregational singing one of the most common communal activities. Arising out of the need to address the poor quality of singing in church, the first music schools began in Boston, Massachusetts, led by amateur church musicians.

Creatively, the musicians instructed singing classes with self-written tune books describing aspects of musical notation and singing technique based on “simplified

European art and folk music” (p. 124).

A wave of immigration, industrialization, and urbanization hit the United States during the mid-19th century. As noted by Humphreys (2010), lack of government support gave rise to poverty and crime in highly populated urban areas where mostly White

European immigrants were forced to settle. Fears over rapidly increasing immigration led to shifts in education for social control. Around this time, in 1838, Lowell Mason

(principal at the Boston Music Academy) published the first music curriculum. Mason’s curriculum was a standardized educational manual merging Western European religious and folk music with U.S. songs of patriotism, expanding from choral singing to the eventual induction of band and orchestra ensembles into curricula towards the end of War

War I, espousing nationalist and entangled exclusionary aims, central to whiteness

(Harris, 1993).

The institutionalization of Eurocentric music as high art grew with advancements in technology (e.g. phonograph, radio, television) developing during War I and through

World War II. School band programs became institutionalized as the performing of patriotic music and marches increased at political and civic functions such as parades welcoming troops home (Humphreys, 2010). The development of the radio allowed The

National NBC Music Appreciation Hour to bring Western European Classical Music into homes across the United States (Howe, 2003). Howe (2003) documented music professors intent on creating listening guides and curriculums to accompany the nationally syndicated event. The self-guided curricula analytically engaged families through deconstructing the Eurocentric aesthetic of music: rhythm, pitch, harmony, melody, and texture (Reimer, 1970/2002). Questions remained, however, about the effects of education in the United States when the Soviet Union (now Russia) successfully orbited a satellite named Sputnik in space giving way to additional educational reforms grounded in theories of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, STEM (Moon & Humphreys, 2006).

Music education, likewise, underwent curriculum reform with the publishing of the Manhattanville Music Curriculum Project (MMCP), a seminal work introducing spiral curriculum theory and student-centered experiential learning through creativity and improvisation (Moon & Humphreys, 2010) during the 1960-70s. The 1990s through the

2000s were heavily influenced by Elliot’s (2009) praxial music education, encouraging individual music educators and students to develop their own philosophies of music education amid growing cultural and student diversity. The popular Venezuelan El

Sistema movement during the early 2000’s proclaimed to use Western European

Classical music to lift poor children out of poverty, further positioning compulsory music teaching and learning within Eurocentric culture and traditions institutionalized as the standardized of excellence (Allsup, 2016b; Baker, 2014).

In an edited book of promising music teacher education practices for the 21st century, Smith & Kaschub (2014) proposed strategies to better position pre-service teachers to teach amid growing student diversity and uncertainty in music education funding. Among the strategies are Smith’s (2014) entrepreneurial pursuit, Kaschub’s

(2014) critical curators of project-based learning, and Abrahams’ (2014) agentive sociology of music teacher education. Notably, Abrahams’ agentive sociology implicates students and teachers with the power to change the field,

Everyone—teachers and their students—must accept responsibility for repairing the world by being agents of change. This begins with music teacher education curricula that supports and encourages pre-service music teachers who will charge forward despite the force of power and intimidation used by those who maintain a status quo of mediocrity. (p. 58)

Kaschub’s and Abrahams’s strategies as well as those featured in Abeles and Custodero’s

(2009) Critical Issues in Music Education are modeled after Freire’s (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, centering commitments to critical consciousness and dialogical teaching and learning.

Similarly to Smith (2014) and Kaschub (2014), Allsup (2016) advocated a remix,

“outplay the signified, to outplay law, to outplay the father, to outplay the repressed…not say explode it” (p. 141). He explained:

In our efforts to promote independence and self-actualization, let’s try to be less certain, less weighty, in our attempts to repair and trespass. It may not be possible to teach a “third meaning” any more than it is possible to teach democracy, especially if its contours have been insufficiently explored. Music students and future music teachers, especially those from within the dominant culture, cannot be expected to understand social justice, diversity, or democratic music-making without experimenting with their many meanings. As an educational prerogative,

these teaching might be practiced as muddled, with limits to their efficacy avowed. As in all open concepts, and all open forms, there will be contradictions, and moments of awareness may flicker before they burn. I am happy with the flicker as much as with the fire. (p. 141)

Offering important departures from prior research (Abraham, 2014; Kaschub,

2014; Smith, 2014), Allsup (2016), as well as Hess and Talbot’s (2019) Going for Broke:

A Talk to Music Teachers, put teacher educators and researchers in charge of the responsibility to dismantle structural oppression with individual educators, specifically

“individuals in oppressed groups” (Hess & Talbot, p. 99).

Agents, Activists, and Transformation

Vygotskian theorist Stetsenko (2017) distinguished agents’ belief of self as

“independently of participating in and contributing” (p. 215) to oppression. That is, an agent uses their privileged stance to act on behalf of the oppressed. In counterpoint, an activist uses one’s lived experiences and often times conflict (Fanon, 1961; Souto-

Manning, 2014) to problematize and collectively dialogue to co-create transformative change (Stetsenko, 2017). Such transformative change entails (re)claiming the marginalized albeit rich ontologies and epistemologies of intersectionally-minoritized individuals and communities of color.

As fields of study, teacher education and music teacher education have not adequately accounted for the contributions of Black feminists (e.g., Combahee River

Collective, 1977; Love, 2017) and Chicana feminists (Anzaldúa, 1987/2007; Saavedra and Pérez, 2012). This means such scholarship is marked by an absence of the generations of personal sacrifice by Black and Latinx women who endure the force and power of intimidation and “have always embodied, if only in their physical

51 manifestations” (Combahee River Collective, 1977, para. 3); they are positioned as adversaries and activist resistors to Whiteness and White interests. As such, they are marginalized and silenced in and by teacher education scholarship and practice. In music and music education, this marginalization is upheld by the (a) lack of problematizations pertaining to the elimination of people of color from the field (Elpus, 2015), (b) the pervasiveness of assimilationist Eurocentric epistemologies of music teaching and learning practices in classrooms (Bolduc & Evrard, 2017; Bond, 2015; Hess, 2013; John et al., 2016) and university courses (Bradley, 2007; Koza, 2003, 2008), and (c) the oppressive experiences of students and teachers of color in classrooms (Bolduc & Evrard,

2017; John et al., 2016; Robinson & Hendricks, 2018) and in lecture halls (DeLorenzo &

Silverman, 2016; Dorothy & Hendricks, 2018; Fitzpatrick et al., 2014; McCall, 2018;

Thornton, 2018). Further, even when seeking to understand and learn from the experiences, legacies, values, and practices of individuals and communities of color, the theoretical and methodological frameworks pervasively employed in music teacher education research lack the personal lived experiences of institutionalized Eurocentric beliefs and practices that only one who has endured it can tell (Robinson, 2016), such an experience is composed quite differently qualitatively from the experiences of White music teacher education researchers. It is marked by fiery explosions, which propels one to go for broke…no matter what risk (Baldwin, 1963), conflict (Morrison, 2017; Souto-

Manning, 2014), and/or violence (Fanon, 1961/2004)—all in hopes of a much-needed revolutionary break (King, 2008) from Whiteness in music education as a matter of humanity and justice.

Like self-study researchers Ham & Kane (2004), I am self-critically aware many may cast the aforementioned review of music education history and literature as political, sponsoring one (counter-)story of history while excluding many others, which have historically been deemed majoritarian stories. This was precisely my intention. The majoritarian story music education and of music teacher education is well known. Here, my review of literature is a counter-narrative, centrally shaped by my experiences and addressing the “perceived chasm between the high theory of academe and the rich chaos of situated practice” (p. 103). Unapologetically refuting this “unhelpful binarism that opposes rather than reconciles the university to the school, theory to practice, the academic to the teacher and, the researcher to the practitioner” (p. 103), I put theory and practice in conversation with each other as embodied aspects of my identity as a Black-

Queer male DTER; and, my practices as a teacher educator and researcher. Admittedly, I am well aware that putting Blackness as opposition to Whiteness does not make a person of color endowed criticality, “it is not who is doing the research that is critical but how it is done (p. 105). As such, I do not rely on my racial identity as a measure of the trustworthiness of my criticality. Instead, I engage critical race theory and postcolonial theory to aid in historically making sense of my lived experiences, combining these theoretical tools with critical pedagogy bolstering just and equitable pedagogical practices. It is to critical race theories and the functions of Whiteness that I turn next.

Critical Race Theory and Functions of Whiteness

Critical race theory (CRT) is a theoretical, methodological and analytical tool

(Milner & Howard, 2013; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002) for making sense of the persistent

53 inequalities in urban schools serving primarily students of color (Ladson-Billings, 1998,

2017). Bell (1989) conceived the theory by analyzing civil rights law briefs. The lawyer concluded that equity for people of color was rarely achieved through marches, protests, and appealing to the morality of Whites. Instead, civil liberties are granted as White power, privilege, and interests converge and are calcified (Milner, 2008; Milner et al,

2013). Milner and colleagues (2013) further explained,

White people feel they lose their ability to weigh difficult decisions in providing equitable policies and practices that might mean they lose something of great importance to them, including their propensity to control others, and their ability to reproduce and maintain their self-interest—which can be viewed as the status quo. (p. 345)

To slow the process of changing the status quo, some prescribe neoliberalism, multiculturalism, and incrementalism—progress achieved through a series of individuals taking specific steps. Or color-evasive philosophies, as Williams (1997) defines, “color makes no difference” (p. 3). However, CRT scholars noted that neoliberal ideologies complicate differences without creating radically new paradigms ensuring justice

(Delgado & Stefancic, 2012; Marx, 2006). These observations led Bell to categorized five tenets of CRT:

1. Racism is considered ordinary; “the usual way society does business, the

common-everyday experience of people of color in this country” (in Delgado &

Stefancic, 2012, p. 7);

2. Storytelling is used as a means to contest the dominant-White narrative (Bell,

2010);

3. Neoliberalism, multiculturalism, and color-blind philosophies are critiqued for

their emphasis on incrementalism (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995);

4. Recognizing that advancements in civil rights are closely aligned with Whites

power and privilege—interest convergence (Milner, 2008; Milner et al., 2013);

and

5. Injecting counter-narratives to document history of oppression as action to

transform society burdened by racial hierarchies (Giroux, Lankshear, and

McLaren et al., 1996; Milner & Howard, 2013; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002).

Reinforcing CRT’s tenet that racism is a way of everyday life for people of color; then, storytelling is a means to document how people of color negotiate and struggle with power structures (Bell, 2010; Solózano and Bernal, 2001) and create meanings from experiences “rendered silent in the master narrative about the discourse on the foundations of curriculum studies” (Au et al., 2016, p. 7). To do so, Afrocentric ways and systems of knowing must be centered.

Centering Afrocentric Epistemologies

Reclaiming the Multicultural Roots of U.S. Curriculum (Au et al., 2016) explains how Indigenous Peoples, Mexican Americans, Chinese and Japanese Americans, and decedents of enslaved Africans reconstructed their own images and history through storytelling within the curriculum as a means to contest the dominant-White Eurocentric narrative and center the well-being of communities of color. In the present day, one of the ways in which young children and youth embody Afrocentric epistemologies is through

Hip Hop, a powerful form of storytelling. I turn to research on Hip Hop education next.

Teacher educator researcher and former elementary teacher Bettina Love (2015) explored implications for young urban children learning Hip Hop Based stories told

55 through social interactions, language styles, cultural artifacts, and Hip Hop artists students listened to at home. The researcher defined Hip Hop Based Education (HHBE) as educational research using elements of Hip Hop culture (e.g. rap, graffiti, knowledge of self, fashion, language) to guide pedagogy and is “hardwired not only to children’s culture but also to their learning potential and identities” (p. 108-109 see also Hill &

Petchauer, 2013).

At an elementary school in Miami, Florida, Love (2015) used the stories within rap music to retell and remix class readings. This led students to write their own raps and battled one other providing an opportunity for vocabulary in student narratives to be

“linked to a class story and real-life situations” (p. 120). Love credited inspiration for the unit when she “wore a pair of Nike Air Force One sneakers to school [and] all the students regardless of gender, ethnicity, or language commented on how they liked my sneakers” (p. 119).

The greatest lesson, according to Love, occurred when she was a DTER in

Atlanta, Georgia teaching a 13-week course Real Talk: Hip Hop Education for Social

Justice. Twice a year, Love (2015) taught a course to elementary school students characterized by other teachers as being Hip Hop, “unfavorable behavior and prank[sters]” (p. 121). Love remembered being nervous on the first day of school but played Hip Hop music in the background when, she recounts:

One of the boys looked me straight in the eyes and said, “I can rap.” After that I was surrounded by a group of boys bobbing their heads back and forth, hands moving in unison to the beat as physical manifestations of their words, knees slightly bent, and feet planted firmly in the ground…one girl pulled me to the side to inform me that she too, could rap. Then, her female classmates began to support her as one of the class’s best rappers. The excitement in the room was overwhelming, so I gave in and we had an impromptu freestyle rap battle…[Then] it dawned on me what the teachers at the school meant when they

referred to these kids as “so Hip Hop.” The students’ synergy was amazing. There were no plans or instructions; they walked into a class with the words “Hip Hop” in the title and started doing Hip Hop. They did not need permission to be, they just were…Needless to say, we then naturally entered a discussion about how their Hip Hop identities could foster social change and help them in school overall. (pp. 121-122)

Here, Love’s (2015) storytelling of her experiences as a queer woman of color teaching students of color created a classroom filed with creativity, improvisation, and communal learning rooted in the African diaspora, including music, language, and fashion.

Moreover, the stories and culture within Hip Hop laid bare deficit-based language and provided an asset-based framework to position students in surpluses, so that, according to

Love, teachers can use cultural tools and artifacts of children’s home culture to “build specific curriculum materials and instructional strategies for urban learners” (p. 126).

Love’s research exemplifies lived counternarratives, much-needed in countering the majoritarian Eurocentric epistemological orientation and story of music teaching and teacher education, centering music nevertheless. In doing so, she sheds light on possibilities for the field, as it engages in fashioning much-needed pedagogical and epistemological counternarratives.

Counternarratives

If stories narrate interactions and contestations with dominant epistemologies,

Solórzano and Yosso (2002), Torre (2009), and Milner and Howard (2013) position counter-narratives as a method for oppressed to unearth and disrupt patterns of and responses to institutional practices reinforcing racism and other forms of oppression.

According to Solórzano & Yosso (2002), counternarratives serve at least four purposes:

(a) building community among those on the margins by providing a human and familiar

57 face to educational theory and practice, (b) challenge the status quo by providing context to transform established belief systems, (c) open new windows by revealing the realities of the oppressed showing possibilities beyond the dominant perspective, and (d) construct new possibilities, “richer than either the story or the reality alone” (p. 36). Specifically, in urban schools of, “monovocal stories about the low educational achievement and attainment of students of color” (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002, p. 27), counternarratives amplify resistance to racialized, gendered, and classed experiences of injustice and focuses on the surpluses of the oppressed (Milner & Howard, 2013). Here, the curriculum represents a mirror or window (Bishop, 1990; Tschida, Ryan, and Ticknor, 2014; Souto-

Manning & Lanza, 2019) between teacher and other students and the overall functioning of institutional oppression.

CRT has been used to counter the dominant narrative of Brown v. Board of

Education as increasing educational equality for Blacks (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995).

CRT in education (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995) then served as a theoretical and analytical filter for historically coloring and making sense of communities of color experiences in schools and schooling (Milner & Howard, 2013). Educational historian

Siddle Walker’s (2018) Lost Education of Horace Tate reconstructs a counternarrative, which aptly adorns and deepens Ladson-Billing’s & Tate’s (1995) previous application of

CRT to Brown. Siddle Walker compiled 12 years of research: participant oral accounts, historical archival documents, and extant literature and research re-constructing how public funding followed White families to private schools, increased emphasis on tests and state-mandated curriculum, and a decrease in the arts, “French was not offered and…White schools did not even have a band” (p. 276). Meaning, the researcher

58 documented White politicians consistently “appeal[ing] to their White neighbors” (p.

247; see also Walker, 1996). The educational historian also breathed intentionality behind an Afrocentric epistemology of educational equity. Teaching Black children excellently involved love, “know the child, his ambitions and aspirations, his fears and frustrations”

(p. 132). She carved out education as an art, “working with the precious clay of unfolding personality” (p. 85). The teacher’s call was to inspire students to participate in the

American democratic experiment through activism. Black intellectuals believed the fight for justice must be rooted in the needs and interests of the Black community. Together teachers and administrators fought against deficit notions of Black children, “If [one] controls your thinking, he therefore, controls you.” (p. 299). That is, as previously underscored by Ladson-Billings (2004), “some of the all-Black schools were superior to their White counterparts” (p. 6).

Counternarratives have also been employed in the field of music and music education, (e.g., Heisler, 2015; Groulx, 2016). Heisler (2015) documented John Coltrane as a fifth-grader in High Point, North Carolina learning the achievements of poet and musician Langston Hughes and Classical singer Marian Anderson, both representing

“embodiment of Renaissance-era ideals of African-American elegance” (p. 398).

Meaning, Coltrane and classmates were studying the works of Black artistic intellectuals at the very time they were actively composing and performing music. Groulx (2016) connected school to community noting music curricula coincided with African-American churches organizing community bands playing marches, spirituals, and popular music: blues, jazz, bebop, and swing. The effects of an institutionalized Afrocentric framework, according to Heisler (2015) was “the musical pillar of the larger cultural campaign for

59 racial uplift and racial pride thousands of young African-Americans were taking advantage” (pp. 398-399).

Specifically regarding the Black state of education pre-Brown and the subsequent developments thereafter, counternarratives have been employed by researchers to trace

White morality saving Black children (Walker, 1996, 2018) as exemplified in Ladson-

Billings (2004), “Black children suffered injury not because they were sitting in classrooms with other Black children but rather because they were in those classrooms within a larger system that defined them and their schools as inferior” (p. 5). Or treated

Black and Brown students as property, thereby centering the interests of Whiteness

(Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995; Harris, 1993; Ladson-Billings, 2017).

CRT & The Property Issue and Curriculum

Despite five decades of civil rights gains, CRT suggests most communities of color remain disadvantaged in schools because of racial entanglements with individual rights and property rights (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). Honoring the work of Bell

(1989), Ladson-Billings and Tate (1995) outlined tensions between the removal of

Indigenous peoples, enslaved African peoples, and the pursuit of life, liberty, and freedom argued by colonists at the Constitutional Convention. Ladson-Billings and Tate

(1995) framed the main purpose of the U.S. government constructed by White men was to protect the rights of White property owners’ land and the spaces which communities of color inhabit. This means, property also included animals and Black and Brown bodies

(Au et al., 2016; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). In this section, I describe key studies on race and racism in music teaching and teacher education curriculum through the lenses of

60 critical race theory and whiteness as property (Harris, 1993). As I do so, I illustrate how in music teaching and teacher education, curriculum is a form of racialized property.

Critical race theory helps me understand the racism of U.S. public school funding formulas, which are largely financed with homeowner’s property taxes (Ladson-Billings

& Tate, 1995). Most property is owned by affluent Whites with higher property taxes who often resent paying for urban districts (Ladson-Billings, 2017; Langbein, 2004).

Economist Laura Langbein’s (2004) examination of property taxes shed light on music education in public schools; she theorized public interests as valued capital that directly serves and is consumed by the majority of people within a space. Private interests are capital provided to the public and are valued by all; but, only serve and benefit certain segments of the populations. In this way, public education is a quasi-public-good since its return and investments on human capital largely accrue to wealthy Whites, usually landowners (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995; Harris 1993). Likewise, compulsory music classes are provided at the public expense, yet small populations of students enroll or are provided with music classes. While music education may be offered in schools the

“political clout” (Langbein, 2004, p. 95) over curriculum is often arbitrated by White teachers, administrators, and school board members who set educational standards for communities. In this sense curriculum represents a form of “intellectual property” where quality and quantity vary with “property value,” or the greatest number of White kids in the school (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995, p. 54).

A number of research studies have recognized curriculum as property in the

Whiteness of elementary songbooks and teacher education research (e.g., Hall, 2000;

Feay-Shaw, 2002). Hall (2000) determined the Silver Burdett songbook volumes

61 published from 1930-1995 were saturated with racist stereotypes and caricatures of

African Americans. Spirituals such as “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” never mention the song as a “form of resistance to enslavement” (p. 224) nor were civil rights protest songs described as historical manifestations of “active forms of resistance to oppression” (p.

226). Instead, people of African descent were pictured as one who is “spiritually uplifted in the hopes of future reprieve” (p. 224). Repertoire such as “The Snake Charmer” and

“Hindustan” stereotype Arabic cultures as exotic. Though indicating images of pride of one’s homeland, Chinese folk song “Feng Yang,” and “The Albaninan Wedding Song,” harbor sexist and classiest undertones. Feay-Shaw’s (2002) analysis of Mexican-

American and Latin-American music unearthed Latinx folk songs as so reconstructed for school use they “lost both their authenticity and their validity as cultural representations.”

(p. 97). Together, Hall and Feay-Shaw demonstrate the cultural curricular bleaching in songbooks privileging European cultures by reifying White power structures through the representations of damaging racial stereotypes.

Proprietary Whiteness is also central in music teaching and learning practices

(Bolduc & Evrard, 2017). Canadian researchers Bolduc and Evrard (2017) surveyed 108 female early-childhood educators and music specialists in a questionnaire addressing their school’s music practices. Forty-two percent worked in urban neighborhoods. Music educators with in-depth knowledge of music reported repetition of musical activities focusing on rhythm (69%) and pitch (61%). Seventy-six percent taught appreciation of

Eurocentric instrumental and vocal music and 94% used Eurocentric nursery rhymes (e.g.

Humpty Dumpty), songs, and play-poems to guide instruction. Moreover, trained music

62 educators “sometimes or never” (p. 12) gave students opportunities to create and share compositions by themselves and others.

Although it may be easy to frame the Eurocentricity of music and music education as a problem for children of color, research across time and space shows that many affluent young White students also experienced dissatisfaction and developmentally inappropriate music instruction by credentialed and trained music professionals (Brand, 1986; Bond, 2015; John, Cameron, & Bartell, 2016). Music education researcher Vanessa Bond (2015) spent three weeks as a participant-observer conducting interviews and focus groups with parents and teachers within two early childhood schools (in New Jersey and Wisconsin). Both schools had a high retention of teachers, smaller class sizes, and operated “without financial constraints” (pp. 468-469).

The two schools were also located in suburban mostly White middle-class communities.

Both programs hired licensed music teachers to instruct music classes. In these cases, weekly music instruction was highly structured, “children sang when prompted, often in keys that were not developmentally appropriate, and played classroom instruments to accompany their music teacher’s song” (p. 473). John, Cameron, and Bartel’s (2016) ethnographic study of two EC music classes at a preschool located in one of the most racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse neighborhoods where families make “less than $30,000 a year” (p. 25) in Toronto, Canada further assist in contextualizing

Eurocentric practices in music education classrooms. The Canadian researchers gathered

5 months of observations notes, videos, and interviews with the music teacher in order to make sense of the forms of musical play within the classroom. Three forms of musical play were present among the 33 EC students in John and her colleagues’ study: ritualized

(Hello, Gathering, and Goodbye songs), guided (teacher demonstration), and creative

(student-initiated exploration). Ritualized and guided play evoked sadness, distress, and feelings of isolation among students in the bounded case study. Conversely, a

“consum[ing]… attention and energy” (p. 27)—higher levels of enjoyment with students showing more smiles and laughter (for 30 seconds or more)—was observed in creative musical play, students left alone for free exploration and unrestricted spontaneous improvisation.

Creative musical play. Creative musical play is an important form of social interaction, creativity, and sense-making within the music classroom (Campbell, 2010;

Marsh & Young, 2006). Musical play is constructed as a as dialogue by which students use sound to share “emotions, intentions, and meaning” (Campbell, 2010, p. 22). This includes, according to the researchers, an ability to emotionally and socially co-construct and organize information, as well as regulate behavior. Marsh and Young (2006) expanded:

Music is a means for playing with others…Such activities promote collaboration and cohesiveness within friendship groups. Social rules of turn-taking and hierarchical structures of social importance among friends are literally played…reflecting and endorsing enculturated behaviors and social patterns from the wider socio-cultural environment. (pp. 289-291)

Race is situated within the wider socio-cultural environment of White values, norms, and hierarchies that constrain youth of color and are embedded within Eurocentric frameworks for creative musical play (Mac Naughton and Davis, 2009). Their edited book “Race” and Early Childhood Education: An International approach to Identity,

Politics, and Pedagogy conclusively documents by 2nd or 3rd-grade young children realize and playout oppression (e.g. racial) at a real conscious level. Atkinson (2009) elaborates,

When children hold racially informed concepts of others during the preschools years and are aware that the open expression of those concepts will be met with disapproval of staff, they may be less likely to express them when closely supervised. The workings of racialized power between children may therefore play out on the periphery of adult awareness…The need to address the silences around race and racism in the early years is therefore essential, regardless of children’s perceived innocence [and/or in/competence], as it is in the early years that are foundational in building the platform for social justice to which early childhood educators are ideally committed. (pp. 143-153)

Atkinson (2009) postulated the necessity to name, talk about, and dismantle race and power hierarchies in the early childhood classroom. This contradicts positions of enabling race and power hierarchies to only reflect and endorse enculturated behaviors and social patterns from the wider socio-cultural environment (Marsh & Young, 2006).

Researched connections of silences, appropriation, and degradation of communities of color culture in literature, and constraining Eurocentric practices link colonial ideas of property to schools and curricula exposing racism in music education. In return, students become collateral “victims in the construction of Whiteness—that which

Whites alone possess” (Ladson-Billings and Tate, 1995, p. 59) or “the entire project of mass schooling in the United States and Canada was a project of racist, settler colonialism” (Au et al., 2016. p. 9). Tuck and Gaztambide-Fernandez (2013) elucidate:

the settler colonial effort—has not only signaled to marginalized communities that “your curriculum does not live here” but has also fundamentally perpetuated the institutionalized and professional racism so present[.] This realization about the field of curriculum studies is less about pointing a finger at individual scholars, whom we know and respect, and more about highlighting the incredible blind spot in the field that resides with the durable and complicated concept of “race” in the United States…and its appears the field of curriculum studies is guilty of continuing a fundamentally racist epistemology and ontology despite its contemporary commitment to a politics of equality and difference. (in Au et al., 2016, p. 11)

CRT & Reputation and Status Property

Ladson-Billings & Tate’s research on Whiteness as property in CRT grew out of increasing examples of general education’s degradation of White intellectual property through bilingual education and special education programs (Saavedra, 2011). Scholars

(Beratan, 2006; Biklen & Burke, 2007; Leonardo; 2007; Leonardo & Broderick, 2011) note that special education programs are overwhelmingly populated by students of color secluded from the “general” school population as well as in music education (Abril,

2003). While Ladson-Billings & Tate delineate four functions of Whiteness as property in education I only take-up “reputation and status” for potential implications for urban music teacher education research pertaining to this study. Equating Whiteness with

Blackness, positioned as delayed, deficient and/or incompetent (Cooper, 2016) is a darkening of White character (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). Indeed, legal studies demonstrate slander—to damage reputation, is some aspect of personal property (Bell,

1989; Hall, 1993). Given the paucity of literature pertaining to whiteness as property in music teaching and teacher education, Table 2.1 expands scholarship for potential sites, applying it to U.S. music teaching and teacher education.

Reputation and status as property (Harris, 1993) is defined as denigrating and/or othering as a way to diminish the reputation of Blackness and sustain the status quo of

Whiteness. To review from Chapter 1, Whiteness has been defined as White ways and systems of knowing (epistemologies) which historically further White interests through normalizing White values equating quality to Eurocentrism that enables systemic racism

to sustain White supremacy. I use these concepts to read the literature on music teacher

education.

Property Functions of Whiteness in U.S. Music Education Harris’s (1993) Harris’s (1993) Application to Music Teaching & Whiteness as Functions of Whiteness Teacher Education Property as Property Discourse of assimilation Appropriation, erasure, ignoring, and conformity carried and/or misrepresentation of the Rights of disposition out through policies and musical epistemologies of people of practices. color in curriculum. Right to sanction what music is Sanctioning and worthy to be studied within the Rights to use and tokenizing performance, academy. For example, Rap and Hip enjoyment pleasure, and Hop are positioned as music for entertainment pleasure and entertainment. Labeling students as musically Denigrating and/or deficient, requiring remedial Reputation and othering as a way to Eurocentric music theory and history status property diminish reputation or classes and proficiency exams. status Forcing students to conform to Eurocentric norms of performing. Or, closely monitoring and curating student creativity to adult norms. Protecting White interests through Gatekeeping institutions the creation, advocation, and Absolute right to to safeguard and protect legislation of discriminatory policies exclude power and privileges and practices. Such as auditioned or advanced ensembles and classes.

Table 2.1: Property Functions of Whiteness in U.S. Music Education

The protection of White reputation and status as superior was cataloged by Talbot

(2018), who documented the executive director and chief executive of the National

Association for Music (NAfME) voicing: “Black and Latinos lack the keyboard skills

needed to advance the field” to other arts organization leaders at a National Endowment

of the Arts meeting (Cooper, 2016). These comments came when leading professional

67 orchestras and schools of music reported a lack of diversity, “particularly in the auditioning and hiring of musicians and educations of color” (Talbot, 2018, p. 4).

White reputation and protection are not only professed by representatives of major professional organizations (i.e. NAfME), but also present in the very experiences of musicians of color. Dorothy (2018), a Black female harpist, recounted how a White music education professor positioned her:

When doing peer teachings, I always had to play a secondary instrument (an instrument that I was learning at the time) because none of my professors even considered the harp as a valid option…At the time, I was learning bassoon and could muster up a two-octave scale. My tone was absolutely horrible and I got many looks from my peers and professors because I was messing up the tone quality and balance of the ensemble. For the next peer-teaching assignments, I was placed in the percussion section by my professor to play the bass drum. I believe that as a class we were all taught something that day: If a student doesn’t easily conform to personal goals of the director, put them in the percussion section. We often see that done to the “bad kids” in the ensemble, but I never thought it would be me. (p. 74)

Dorothy’s narrative offers a situated representation of a phenomenon. This phenomenon also comes to life in Darrin’s (2018) autoethnography, who recalled his parents making his elementary teachers “understand that “doing ok” was not good enough” (p. 50) and in

Schlein & Chan’s (2010) study of A’ishah, a female Bangladeshi Muslim student, in

American schooling, experiencing struggles and tensions as she tried to balance a love for

Islamic practices (e.g. prayers, spiced culinary aroma, clothed-swimming) against gendered anti-Islamic stereotypes (i.e. wearing a hijab). A’ishah admitted to watching and listening to Bengali music videos; but, “preferred to study Italian” (p. 258) in a

“desire to be accepted by and conform to the standards of her Canadian, non-Muslim peers” (p. 259) in and outside of the classroom. The aforementioned research studies

68 underscore the power of language to maintain White reputation and status in urban spaces

(Delpit, 1988).

Delpit (1988) catalogued how racialized talk supports a “culture of power” (p.

283) where the success of institutions (e.g. schools and workplaces) are based on discourses (linguistic/communicative forms: ways of talking, ways of writing, ways of interacting, ways of dressing) that accrue to the upper-middle-class White interests.

Accordingly, White educators tend to position their perspective as “authority to establish what [is] to be considered “truth”” (p. 283), regardless of the lived expertise of people of color. To combat racialized language, Delpit (1988) and Solórzano & Yosso (2001) insisted students and educators of color be taught to analyze their life histories in order to name and transform oppressive racialized encounters.

Reviewing critical race theory retrospectively, reputation and status property uncloak deficit-based language characterizing people of color as inferior to Whites.

Critical race theory in combination with Whiteness as property (Harris, 1993) provided a lens for naming assimilatory and denigrating images in music and music education curriculum. Storytelling, narratives, counter-narratives, and autoethnographies, as methodologies of resistance grounded on Afrocentric traditions, document the lived experiences of people of color, recognizing and interrupting deficit-based and racist language within the dialogue and assimilatory curricula.

As explored in this section, aggregately, CRT aims to be a revisionist process of rewriting the well-being of communities of color and their bodies of knowledge through school curriculum (Au et al, 2016; Mills, 1998). However, King (2008) pointed to limitations of CRT undertheorizing “actions that practitioners can use to develop a

69 counter-hegemonic practice” (p. 1103). Or, to use Dorothy’s (2018) words framing her under preparation for music teaching in the classroom, “I often felt like the students were teaching me more than I was teaching them” (p. 74). Souto-Manning and Winn (2017) also warned of researchers applying CRT and framing participants and their stories as an object, “doing research on [rather than] research with” (p. xiv). In response, this study aligns with critical pedagogy which positions the oppressed as subjects in terms of assets

(Freire, 1970; Souto-Manning, 2010). It affirms Dorothy’s humanity and recognizes the expertise of musicians of color: “one of the most pivotal things” a teacher can do “was affirm me as a musician” (p. 75).

Critical Pedagogy: Critical Cycle and Co-Teaching

In this section, I define critical pedagogy, drawing on the work of Freire (1970) and Souto-Manning (2010). Then, I detail the critical cycle, explaining its components and exploring the centrality of dialogical learning. Finally, I draw connections between praxis (Freire, 1970) and co-teaching (Emdin, 2016). In doing so, I explore studies done in music teaching and teacher education.

Critical pedagogy is a transformative approach to education predicated on critically reading wrongs in schooling and society and committing to collaboratively and transformatively right the wrongs affecting oppressed individuals and communities

(Freire, 1970; Souto-Manning, 2010; 2019). Souto-Manning (2010) positioned critical pedagogy as asset-based framework for situating schools within the context of societies and considers the activities which influence and shape teaching and learning; an asset- based framework because communities of color are constructed as bodies of knowledge

70 with accumulated wealth of historical, sociocultural, and political capital (Yosso, 2002).

Meaning, students and teachers are positioned in surpluses and not deficits. Souto-

Manning’s application of critical pedagogy in teacher education (e.g., Souto-Manning,

2019a) is rooted in Paulo Freire’s (1970/2005) Pedagogy of the Oppressed and sponsors a belief that education is inherently political and any educational pedagogy of the oppressed should be co-constructed and grounded in well-being and social visions of justice and equity with marginalized communities.

Methodologically, critical pedagogy is carried out in classrooms and other educational settings (formal and informal) through a critical cycle. The critical cycle first positions teachers and teacher educators as learners of their students. Through thematic investigation, teachers identify pressing and oppressing issues generating from the lived realities of students. To be sure, critical pedagogy positions teachers as teacher-learners and students as learner-teachers, rejecting the duality of master and apprentice central to the majoritarian story of music teaching and teacher education. Then, together and dialogically, a community engages in problem-posing generative themes, problem- solving through dialogue, and conscientizaçāo, a means of taking critically conscious action, “leave behind the status of objects to assume the status of historical Subjects”

(Freire, 1970, p. 160) with power to heal and change the world. In teacher education, the critical pedagogy cycle is also known as Freirean Culture Circles (Souto-Manning,

2010).

Problem-posing and generative themes. “The role of the problem-posing educator is to create; together with the students…their power to perceive critically the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves” (Freire, 1970,

71 pp. 81-83). Problem-posing education begins with teacher and student’s sharing life stories as the starting point of investigation. Through the sharing of life stories, students and teachers begin to apprehend the interrelated points of oppression within a larger sociocultural and political context. This makes the past visible within the present as a means of “understanding more clearly what and who [we] are so that [we] can more wisely build the future” (Freire, 1970, p. 84); as such, it recognizes that history matters in the pursuit of justice. Gathering themes from classroom interactions requires both teacher and student dismantle traditional notions of teacher and curriculum as authority (Freire,

1998). Instead, education becomes an act of humility and love by which students and teachers “neither utter ignoramuses nor perfect sages” (p. 90) together build more knowledge than individually previously know.

Freire defined generative themes as—critical re-presentations of “ideas, values, concepts, and hopes, as well as the obstacles which impede the people’s full humanization” (p. 101). In practice generative themes are pictures, media, songs, or the like, codified from “words and themes emerged from [participants] own universe as opposed to accentuating the areas in which [participants] practices might need further honing” (Souto-Manning, 2010, p. 37). The codification into themes from student and teacher realities serves the purpose of not singling out any one student but to problematize “a concern for the links between themes” (Freire, 1970, p. 108). Freire further explains the process for the teacher,

register[ing] everything in their notebooks, including apparently unimportant items: the way people talk, their style for life, their behavior…their expressions, their vocabulary, and their syntax (not their incorrect pronunciation, but rather the way they construct their thought…After each observation visit, the [teacher] should draw up a brief report to be discussed by the entire team, in order to evaluate preliminary findings…to develop the codifications to be used in the

[next] thematic investigation. Since the contradictions (sketches or photographs) are objects which mediate the [students and teacher] in their critical analysis, the preparation of these codifications must…necessarily represent situations familiar to the individuals whose thematics are being examined, so they can easily recognize the situations (and thus their own relation to them). (pp. 111-114)

That is, the codification of generative themes supports an on-going data collection process and must be rooted in the home cultures of students (Brand, 1986; Perry & Perry,

1986). Additionally, a benefit of codifying life stories into generative themes aids in creating a non-threatening way for students and teachers to be vulnerable and make connections to situations in their own lives, which is carried out through dialogical teaching and learning (Souto-Manning, 2010).

Seeking to implement critical pedagogy in the music classroom Eric Shieh (2016) played through and listened to John Coltrane’s (1963) Alabama, a musical anguish and improvisation over the 1963 Ku Klux Klan bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in

Birmingham, Alabama1. Shieh sat with his middle students following the murder of Eric

Garner in New York City (NYC)2. The DTER lamented, “I ask students in the context of

Eric Garner how we understand this music, and by this music I mean this wail—by which

I mean this speaking, and speaking on the gross injustice dealt to Black men and women in our country” (p. 127). Shieh goes on to identify himself as a gay Asian man by asking:

what power does Coltrane hold—and just as important—what power do we as musicians —or is it human beings or Black or White or female or male” have in muddling in and through Coltrane’s music and finding our way back “out from, outside of, through this music and through this world we inhabit (p. 127).

1 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, an act of White supremacist’s terrorism, took place on Sunday, September 15, 1963 (thirteen days after the March on Washington) where four Black girls were murdered.

2 On July 14, 2014, Eric Garner was placed in a prohibited chokehold by the New York Police Department and then shot for selling single cigarettes (loosies).

While respectful of past scholarship theorizing and examining critical issues inside the music classroom, Shieh found interest convergence in music education research by arguing for a return to Afrocentric scholarship which places the liberation of Black lives in the hands of Black folks and out of Whites, “a particular stake in the question of radical politics of music, and radical politics in relation to Black lives” (p. 128).

Focusing on instructional steps, Shieh and students drew upon the writings of numerous jazz musicians and theorists (e.g. Theodore Adorno, Kimberly Benston, Ralph

Ellison) during and after several listenings to Alabama. He then challenged students to work individually or in groups to (a) pick two approaches for listening to jazz explored, examined, and discussed through class literature and (b) use each approach to re-structure

Alabama for performance. In vulnerability, humility, and willingness to reflect for others to learn (Loughran et al., 2004), Shieh described the experience as falling short of engaging the vestiges of Slavery and its manifestations in the current #BlackLivesMatter movement, “Jazz is not—to them—the story of Blackness, or Black America” (p. 138).

Fanon (1961) grounds Shieh’s (2016) motif elaborating on irrelevance of jazz to 21st century youth when new styles of music have established themselves,

For them jazz could only be the broken, desperate yearning of an old “Negro,” five whiskeys under his belt, bemoaning his own misfortune and the racism of the Whites…And it is not unrealistic to think that in fifty years or so the type of jazz lament hiccupped by a poor, miserable “Negro” will be defended by only those Whites believing in a frozen image of a certain type of relationship and certain form of negritude. (p. 176).

For Shieh (2016) the unit was not a failure, but a beginning by which he sought to fumble through ways students make music as collective subjects sharing and learning who they are in the world. Shieh’s findings are bolstered by Heisler (2015) linking performance of music and studied text (literature, research, student narratives) as “integrated through

74 their characterization of the music as a narration of the explicitly textual [context]” (p.

396). Teacher educator Dixson (2005) in her self-study articulated, music became a place where she could “make profound statements creatively [emphasis added]” (p. 109) learning her voice is “part of a collective statement that should be political and liberatory.

It is in learning to be part of an ensemble that influences my understanding of research and knowing” (p. 109).

Dialogical learning. The classroom ensemble of teacher-researchers and student- teachers—co-influencers of systems of injustice and power to act and change it—become a space for engaging dialogical learning (Freire, 1970; Souto-Manning, 2010). Dialogical learning is not “a crafty instrument for the [authority] of one person by another” (Freire,

1970, p. 89). Dialogue is “a way of knowing” (Souto-Manning, 2010, p. 39) by which all co-construct knowledge through a process of challenging institutional discourses and individual realities commonly perceived as the status quo (Shor & Freire, 1987; Gee,

1996).

According to Freire (1970), dialogical teaching and learning is “fundamentally narrative” (p. 72). In dialogue, teachers and students start reconceptualizing their knowledge and lived experiences as they learn an interact with each other. The collective interactions build trust and enable challenges to different perspectives, practices, experiences, and realities. Methodologically, Freire (1970) characterized dialogued as

“movement of thought” moving from the abstract to the concrete; this requires moving from the part to the whole and then returning to the parts” (p. 105). This zoom in and zoom out approach allows space for the problem to be deconstructed from multiple vantages and lived experiences (Souto-Manning, 2010).

Emdin (2016) recorded students “feel validated for who they are rather than who the teacher expects or desires them to be” (p. 67) when engaged in dialogical learning.

Souto-Manning (2009) previously found similar results when she and first grade students dialogued about the stink of stringent curriculum and conflict (Souto-Manning, 2015) of injustices in special education’s pull-out programs. Pull-out programs remove individual or small groups of children (e.g. those qualifying for special education services/IEP) from their homeroom for targeted remedial instruction (Souto-Manning, 2009). These programs tend to be populated by families of color with lower socioeconomic status

(Leonardo, 2007; Leonardo & Broderick, 2011), making schools a “sorting mechanism in the USA” (Souto-Manning, 2009, p. 52).

As archived by Souto-Manning (2009), changed started when a child stated,

“That’s not fair” (p. 50) in response to his peers being removed from the classroom. Over the course of two academic years (August 2001-August 2003) the researcher positioned herself as ethnographer listening to students’ conversations, gathering student artifacts, and taking notes on classroom observations. Following an excavation of who her students are and the issues critical to them, Souto-Manning juxtaposed traditional multicultural children’s literature mandated by curriculum (e.g. Three Little Pigs) with other multicultural and interdisciplinary texts on social issues (e.g. newspaper articles). The codification of children’s literature opened space for multiple perspectives to be dialogued through the images and text. As noted by Souto-Manning, the first-graders did not all agree on whose perspective was right, “yet, the issues the books raised steered students to think on their own locations of oppression within the school and society” (p.

66). Accordingly, the dialogical cycle within Souto-Manning’s (2009) study led students

76 to suggest the structure of school should be changed based not only theoretically, but also in practice with students curating their classroom (Emdin, 2016) and co-creating justice and equity.

Freire (1970) brings the theme home composing,

an act of creation and re-creation is not possible if not infused with love. Love is at the same time the foundation of dialogue and dialogue itself…love is an act of courage, not of fear, love is commitment to others. No matter where the oppressed are found, the act of love is commitment to their cause—the cause of liberation. And this commitment, because it is loving, is dialogical. As an act of bravery love cannot be sentimental; as an act of freedom, it must not serve as pretext for manipulation. It must generate other acts of freedom; otherwise it is not love. Only by abolishing the situation of oppression is it possible to restore the love which that situation made impossible. (pp. 89-90)

Co-Teaching as conscientizaçāo creative praxis. Emdin (2016), theorist of

Reality Pedagogy and Pentecostal Pedagogy, introduces co-teaching in the critical cycle as an effective way for educators to name differences in educational strategies between students and teacher and “adjusting one’s teaching accordingly, which often requires nontraditional approaches to teaching and learning” (p. 83). Specifically, for teacher education courses, co-teaching becomes essential as model for demonstrating and constructing ethical teaching with students and gives space for providing opportunities for future teachers to teach and learn from their classmates. He enumerates:

Coteaching within reality pedagogy involves the transfer of student/teacher roles so that everyone within the classroom can gain the opportunity to experience teaching and learning from the other’s perspective. Furthermore, it requires a redistribution of power in the classroom that return to the essence of teaching— privileging the voice of the student. (p. 87)

Co-teaching was central to Picower’s study (2011) of 12 first year elementary student-teachers implementing critical pedagogy projects. Her two-year research began when the participants were student-teachers in her social justice teacher education course.

Shen then followed 12 of the participants through to first year of in-service and subsequent focus groups. In focus groups, Picower with teachers dialogued about readings, developed curriculum on social justice topics, shared and troubleshot enacted curriculum, examined student work to see how students were understanding themes of social justice, researched specific topics students identified as knowledge gaps in their own learning, and listened to guest speakers on social justice pedagogy. In reporting her findings, Picower contended co-teaching (1) provided collaboration and models derived from practice to support new teachers in their development, (2) increased ability to actualize critical pedagogy within the demands of schools, and (3) developed leadership and mentoring skills. In closing, Picower (2011) warned of traditional models led by experts not allowing for building of relationships and collaborative space for critical discussion. The call to teacher education, according to Picower, should be “intense investments in the relationships and well-being” (p. 23) of students and teachers.

In recapitulation, co-teaching can inspire transformation in teacher education because the framework requires demystification of the process of learning to teach

(Picower, 2011). It entails the teacher-educator also share their narratives uncovering how and why they teach the way they do (Emdin, 2016). Or, in the Pentecostal pedagogical preaching of Emdin, “teaching is not just telling students what you know; it’s about knowing how to share what you know so that it can be optimally received” (p.

51) so student-teachers can “navigate and transform existing institutional structures while still be[ing] effective” (Emdin, 2016, p. 87).

Postcolonial theorist Fanon (1961/2004) in The Wretched of the Earth rounds to homebase:

All this clarification, the [enlightening of consciousness] and the advances along the road to understanding the history of societies can only be achieved if the people are organized and guided. This organization is established by the revolutionary elements arriving from the [students] at the beginning of the [course] and those who make their way to the [content of study] as the struggle intensifies. It is this core which constitutes the embryonic political body of the [revolution]. As for the [lumpenproletariat], they improve their knowledge through practical experience and prove apt to lead the people’s struggle. A wave of [consciousness] and mutual enrichment flows…Traditional institutions are reinforced, expanded and sometimes literally transformed. (pp. 92-93)

That is, the oppressed with understandings of history and in dialogical interactions can co-create revolutionary conditions to co-compose and playout a more just and equitable world not yet seen (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002). The groundbase of the work in teacher education lies with co-teaching, dialogical culture circles, and critical pedagogy in teacher education. Finally, what remains is postcolonial theory, which helps me account for and address the serious problem of colonialism in United States music education; and, the theorization of an Afrocentric framework for a Go fo’ Broke revolution.

Postcolonial Theory and the Lumpenproletariat

Fanon (1961) described the complexities of Blackness under colonial racism “as experienced” (Bhabha, 2004, p. ix) in France during the 1950’s and the 1960’s Algerian anticolonial revolution. In Fanon’s work, colonized and capitalist societies are dominated by politicians, police, and soldiers as the spokesperson and “rule of oppression for the people” (Fanon, 1961, p. 31). The educational system likewise is indicted within colonized rule as the

Structure of moral reflexes handed down to…exemplary honesty of workers who are given a medal after fifty years of good and loyal service, and the affection which springs from harmonious relations and good behaviour—all the esthetic expressions of respect for the established order serve to create around the exploited person an atmosphere of submission and of inhibition…In the capitalist

countries a multitude of moral teachers, counsellors, police, and soldiers separate the exploited from those in power. (p. 31)

The church, too, in colonized spaces does not teach the ways of god, “but to that of the ways of the White man, to the ways of the master, the ways of the oppressor” (p. 34). All the White supremacy of White values “stated with such violence,” as noted by Fanon, will wake the lumpenproletariat and “begin to sharpen the weapons” (p. 35) of anti-racist revolutionary collective strategy for a “new line of action” (p. 46).

The lumpenproletariat, “colonized peoples, these slaves of modern times” (p. 58), are a constructed as tattered, worn, and overworked individuals from subgroups limping through oppressive structures designed to maintain the status quo. Lumpen, is German, means a rag or cloth that is tattered. Proletariat is also German and stems from the

Marxist postcolonial classification of the powerless working class of which Said

(1978/1995) called Orients and Spivak (1988) termed Subalterns. Fanon (1961/2004) further cloaked writing

For the lumpenproletariat, that horde of starving men, uprooted from their tribe and from their clan, constituting one of the most spontaneous and the most radically revolutionary forces of a colonized people… They are like a horde or rats; you may kick them and throw stones at them, but despite your efforts they’ll go on gnawing at the roots of the tree that is colonial domination. The constitution of the lumpenproletariat is a phenomenon which obeys its own logic, and neither the brimming activity of the missionaries nor the decrees of the central government can check its growth. We are dealing with a strategy of immediacy which is both all-embracing and radical. Once constituted, these idlers bring all its knowledge and by militant and decisive action discover the path to liberation at the local level… They won’t become reformed characters to please colonial society, fitting in with the morality of its rulers; quite on the contrary, they take for granted the impossibility of their entering the city save by hand-grenades and revolvers. Tactics and strategy merge. The art of politics is quite simply transformed into the art of war. The militant becomes the fighter. To wage war and engage in politics are one and the same thing. And, these lumpenproletariat, those paid little for a month’s work and all those who turn in circles between suicide and madeness, recover their balance are rehabilitated in their own eyes and in the eyes of history. (pp. 101-105)

Here, Fanon (1961) provides a transformative construction of the underclass in assets.

Admittedly, the Lumpenproletariat are tenacious and are not governed by the knowledge, beliefs, and practices of Whiteness. Meaning the Lumpenproletariat follow its own epistemological logic of the people, for the people, and by the people (Au et al.,

2016; King, 2008). The Lumpenproletariat are aware they are mischaracterized, distorted, and deemed in deficits (Cooper, 2016; Ladson-Billings, 1998), as they have been kicked out of the music teaching workforce (Elpus, 2015) and schools (Raible & Irizarry, 2010), yet consistently top music charts (Morris, 2014). Thus, the Lumpenproletariat engage violence, not in the physical sense, but as a way of knowing (Souto-Manning, 2015) as if to say to the oppressors, “Wake up, put on [your] thinking caps and stop playing the irresponsible game of Sleeping Beauty” (Fanon, 1961, p. 62).

The Lumpenproletariat cannot and do not wait on White morality (Ellis et al.,

2019). In this way, violence becomes a public manifestation—a change in language, clothing, strategies, and the like—of a private yet collective rupture breaking way from colonized oppression (Fanon, 1961); and, this conflict is deemed necessary for multiple perspectives to express, negotiate, and reimagine social rules and relationships while in dialogue with others (Souto-Manning, 2015). The Lumpenproletariat is our cafeteria mothahs, custodial staff, secretaries, para professionals, students, and educators. Mi gente

(Balvin and Williams, 2017).

Research has historicized United States music education as stepped in Eurocentric colonial Whiteness. Extending the term Lumpenproletariat to music schools and schooling serves as an intentional racial, ethnic, gender, linguistic, sexual, and class classification associated with power and the use of power to disempower some and

81 empower others (Emdin, 2016). The term considers how people identify themselves based upon shared experiences of “being oppressed, marginalized, and colonized”

(Emdin, 2016, p. 14). Building with and extending from Emdin’s (2016) scholarship on the Neoindigenous, I position the Lumpenproletariat not only as another loaded academic term lacking significance outside of academia. I use the term to frame and make sense of the realities urban students experience and deeply root colonialism to teaching and learning as a vantage point allowing educators to Go fo’ Broke, “beyond what they physically see when working with urban youth” (p. 26) and attend to the relationships between teacher and student life stories merging with wider institutional discourses.

Go fo’ Broke:

An Afrocentric Pedagogy of Music Teaching and Learning

There is urgent need for new revisionary conceptual frameworks that interrupt larger historical phenomenon and contemporary inconsistencies and tensions catalogued in this review of literature (Ravitch & Riggan, 2013). Whereas I have named what has been done before, identified relationships between ideas and practices, and offered complex understandings of the structure of a field of study (Boote & Beile, 2005), to interrupt aforementioned injustices, we must next engage in connecting previous ideas to contemporary applications of learning likely to bring new epistemologies “more explanatory and predictive in power” (Boote & Beile, 2005, p. 7). More explanatory and predictive in power because research question(s) are sprung from personal and professional reflections (Agee, 2009; Loughran et al., 2004) composited into data

82 contextualizing the “not fiction” (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002, p. 36) real life experienced social situations of schools and schooling grounded in findings connected back to the literature, acknowledging that dangerous inequities pervade schools. Yet some innovations to abate the gap between theory and practice in teacher education have largely been unsuccessful (Loughran et al., 2004; King, 2008; Zeichner, 2018).

In teacher education, Ellis, Souto-Manning, and Turvey (2019) categorized unsuccessful innovations as (a) reproducing injustice to maintain the status quo (b) positioning greater number of individuals, specifically marginalized bodies to actualize liberation, and (c) articulating a moral purpose. What then is needed, according to Ellis and colleagues, are frameworks for theorizing the (teacher) education debt, not the student teacher achievement gap, which purports pathological portrayals of new teachers.

Extending Ladson-Billings’ call for (2006) for paying the education debt means paying attention to the complexities of historical injustices accumulated to communities across race, ethnicity, gender, social class, sexuality, and (dis)ability. Researching the education debt in this way implicates the institution of teacher education and education practitioners’ role in the reproduction of inequitable and unjust situations in schools and society (Ellis et al., 2019; Souto-Manning, 2019a).

Ellis, Souto-Manning, and Turvey (2019) proposed an imperative for innovations in teacher education to foreground current context of colonialism, mass immigration, increasing numbers of students of color in schools, and an overwhelmingly White teacher workforce. In detailing the education debt owed to intersectionally-minoritized communities of color, they affirmed that innovative frameworks must address five interrelated components (historical, economic, sociopolitical, moral, and humanizing). I

83 adopt the five interrelated components they identify in my research, focusing on the music teacher education debt.

Below, I elucidate how each component identified by Ellis, Souto-Manning, and

Turvey (2019) figure in my Go fo’ Broke Afrocentric Pedagogy of Music Teaching and

Learning study, which instrumentally foregrounds:

• Historical Component: This concept of music teacher education debt helps

us to recognize the disproportionality demographic in music teaching and

teacher education as an “intended design feature” (Ellis et al., 2019, p. 6).

The historical legacies of inequality in music teaching and teacher

education have been well documented. For example, the discourse around

the peoples of colors musical ineptitude and intellect blaming them for

underrepresentation in teaching (Cooper, 2016) and the overrepresentation

of Black women failing Eurocentric proficiency exams and licensure tests

(Elpus, 2015) misunderstands a history of White supremacy and is

problematic. Such response to the shortage of teachers of color negates the

ways they were pushed out of schools during desegregation (Walker,

2018; Ladson-Billings, 2004), how Afrocentric epistemologies were

blocked (Au et al., 2016; King, 2008; McCall, 2018; Robinson, 2016), and

Black and Latinx experiences of isolation and marginalization in music

classes (Fitzpatrick et al., 2014; Talbot, 2018).

• Economic Component: The economic component of the music teacher

education debt is a “remnant of systems of enslavement and colonization”

(Ellis et al., 2019). When we talk about music, we think of it as a universal

language and a public good for all students (Langbein, 2004). Yet the

chorus, orchestra, band model is competitive (Abramo, 2017; Hendricks,

2013) and weeds students out, particularly those with little to no

background in the Western European classical canon (Koza, 2004, 2008).

Additionally, curricula songbooks and teacher education research (Hall,

2000; Feay-Shaw, 2002) misrepresent communities of color music and

lived experiences in order to maintain properties of Whiteness (Hall, 1993;

Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995) accrued to White interests (Milner et al.,

2013). More research is needed on the interplay of scale economies and

access to music education in urban spaces. Indeed, “as a means for

reparation shattering or dissolution of a notionally Western hegemonic

vision” (Ellis et al., 2019, p. 6).

• Sociopolitical Component: The sociopolitical component of music teacher

education debt binds relations between communities and the institutions of

teacher education as critically important for innovation in our field (Ellis

et al., 2019). Sociopolitically, music teacher education has privileged

Eurocentric and other dominant ways of knowing, while lacking,

mischaracterized, marginalizing, removing, and/or distorting Afrocentric

epistemologies making sense of people of colors lived experiences

(Hendricks & Dorothy, 2018; King, 2008; Ladson-Billings, 1998; McCall,

2018; Robinson, 2016). Moreover, the pervasiveness of the Western

European classical canon in curricula lowered music achievement scores

in Mexican-American youth (and even some White ones) when measured

to the power of music listened to and practiced in the home (Brand, 1986;

Perry & Perry, 1986). And, research has documented the use of Hip Hop

Based pedagogies to connect with students academically and socially (Hill

& Petchauer, 2013; Kruse, 2018; Love, 2015). Addressing the

sociopolitical component of music teacher education debt requires

changing relations with communities (e.g. families and students),

collaborating with them to playout transformative long-term conditions

(Ellis et al., 2019).

• Moral Component: Morally, innovation in music teacher education must

reposition communities of color in ways that prioritize equity and foster

justice on revolutionary terms (Ellis et al., 2019; Fanon, 1961; King,

2008). Music teacher education has understood morality as assimilation to

White European value systems of domination (Humphreys, 2010; Kendi,

2016) and through discourses which position Whiteness as normal

(Bradley, 2007; Souto-Manning, 2014). In doing so, music teacher

education has “behaved in immoral and unethical ways” (Ellis et al., 2019,

p. 6) toward communities of color. Meaning, researchers should trouble

and make explicit “towards whose morality in teacher education” (Milner

& O’Connor, 2016, p. 217)?

• Humanizing Teaching and Learning Component: Humanizing music

teacher education component encapsulates the need for future innovations

to center human activism and relations to counter the dehumanizing

deficit-based mindset and the devastating impact on teachers’ professional

lives and does not serve students and communities (Au et al., 2016; Ellis

et al., 2019; King, 2008). Research is beginning to document the

dehumanizing feelings of remedial music theory classes (Hendricks &

Dorothy, 2018; Robinson & Hendricks, 2018) and talent matched with

toilets (Bond, 1957). Furthermore, the resurgence of assessment in music

teacher education (Parkes, 2008, 2015; Payne, Burrack, Parkes et al.,

2019) or “technical appropriation of innovation for technologically-driven

data” of teachers’ practice wrote Ellis et al. (2019), depending on whether

they respond to question such as ‘what does this data represent; from

whose perspective and in relation to whose interests; and what does it

ignore?’ There is a mistaken assumption that increased data, as well as the

speed of access to data, can only enrich these de-humanizing approaches

and have eroded both the language of learning and of teaching” (p. 8). The

concern here is that the absence of asset, surplus, and well-being based

component for innovation in music teacher education will further endorse

individualistic and competitive programs driven in development that

dehumanizes the knowledge, beliefs, and practices of learning, teaching,

and becoming an educator (Ellis et al., 2019).

Critical race theorist Ladson-Billings (2009b) raps the prose to close: “The only thing that would matter in an environment like this would be that education researchers were bringing their expertise to bear on education problems that spoke to the pressing concerns of the public. I wonder where we might find such a place?” (p.10). To which this study concurs with Souto-Manning (2009) response, “There is not a single answer”

(p. 71). The hope of this study and thus the field of music teacher education, lives and continues with the revolutionary Lumpenproletariat dialogically co-teaching and co- composing practices all the while prioritizing well-being of communities of color.

In this chapter, I engaged in a review of literature whereby I described and analyzed the major theories, positions, and studies related to my research study. In doing so, I sought to elucidate how these studies and the ideas presented by them—individually and in dialogue—ground and inform my construction of the research problem addressed by this dissertation study. In the following chapter, I turn to the methodology, where I explain how I undertook the study presented herein.

Chapter III

METHODOLOGY

“Iz got to talk. I got to tell what I feel. I got to talk about my life as I see it.” -Kick in the Door (Martin Lawrence in Notorious B. I. G., 1997/2004)

Personal history/auto[ethnography] in its various forms including journaling recognizes and therefore allows for the inclusion of the emotional in the process of teacher development; the whole of the individual is thereby incorporated and addressed, as it should be. Another realm commonly believed to include both feeling and cognition is that of the arts. -The Methodology of Self-Study (LaBoskey, 2004, p. 863).

We need to integrate method and music, and write lyrical, personal, and cultural texts, blending social science and creative arts…Our goal would be for readers to hear as well see the words, to feel as well as recognize them, to engage tests written from the heart, and body about hearts, minds, and bodies…We want readers to enter into the melodies, as well as the plot lines…hear the harmony of voices and join their voice with the voices in the text, feel the spaces, take the breaths, interpret the silences, respond, applaud, laugh, cry, find themselves, push away, and then come back again. -Making Autoethnography Sing/Making Music Personal (Bartleet and Ellis, 2010, pp. 11-12).

“Yo DJ bring that back” is a common Hip Hop phrase referring to the audience asking the Emcee to play a song again as repeat, an encore (Urban Dictionary, 2005).

Here, in this work, the phrase signals a replaying of the problem, purpose, and research questions of this study in order to connect theory and practice to data collection and analysis. That is, this chapter details the methodological framework used in this self- study, the ethical ramifications of a DTER (doctoral-student and teacher-educator researcher) engaging self-study while teaching a course, and background of the pilot

89 study conducted prior to carrying out this work. The chapter then discusses the instruments employed for data collection and analysis. Table 3.1 provides an overview of this study.

Go fo’ Broke Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing an Afrocentric Pedagogy of Music Teaching and Learning

Purpose To make sense of the problematic worlds of teaching and learning; and, the systems which race, racism, and entangled forms of bigotry (including but not limited to social class) have implications on the structure of schools; the intent of curricular organization, content and objectives; the impact on interactions with students; and the myriad of ways teachers and students strive to improve our profession as educators.

A blockade of Afrocentric epistemologies by Eurocentric ways of knowing in music teaching and learning is Problem problematic in light of the brilliant knowledge and rich practices of communities of color. Despite their brilliance and richness, such practices are erased, invisiblized, and delegitimized in and by music teacher education theory and practices. Moreover, Eurocentric ideas stamp Black and Brown students, teachers, and researchers as problems and deficits from the beginning accruing White interest to a foundational knowledge base supporting white supremacy. The intent of Eurocentric epistemologies as foundational is to inform music teacher education research and guide university courses and P-20 classroom curricula practices to align with White interests. Additionally, the impact on educators teaching from, operating under, or within a Eurocentric knowledge base has historically maintained mediocrity and boosted morality at best, all the while and to varying degrees sustaining traumatic effects on the individual and collective well-being of people of color.

Inquiries

What are the normative discourses (cultural narratives) in/of music teacher education as a field? How do these position me (my identities, values, and experiences) and my cultural wealth (deficits, traumas, surpluses) as a Black-Queer male teacher educator?

What have my lived experiences been within and across Research Questions music teacher education? How does my identity reflect and/or defies dominant discourses in music education?

What are the roles of my identity, cultural values, and community and familial experiences in music teacher education? How are do these interact with social structures in place?

How have I identified, negotiated, and positioned my cultural wealth (deficits, traumas, surpluses) in the teaching of music to elementary school teachers within the context of music education course for non-majors taught at a Hispanic- serving, undergraduate public institution of higher education?

How do my experiences, priorities, and epistemologies interact with and contribute to the social history of music teacher education?

Table 3.1: Overview of Study

Background of the Study

Doctoral studies coursework led to my interests in examining individual narratives against institutional discourses aiming for equity and justice in teaching and

91 learning, specifically within the context of music teaching and teacher education. While I had publicly engaged in these themes through publications (Robinson, 2014, 2016a,

2016b; Robinson & Hendricks, 2018) and experience as a tenured elementary music teacher with the Boston Public Schools, the classes I selected provided theory, research methodology, and literature to celebrate, complicate, and interrogated many of my beliefs and practices. I especially became interested in the pursuit of equity and justice in teacher education when I served as a student teacher supervisor for music education students at an Ivy League institution; and, later Adjunct Lecturer of a music education course—for non-music majors—at a primarily Hispanic serving urban public college in New York

City (pseudonym PCNYC).

On August 19, 2018 a Facebook friend recommended I apply for an adjunct lecturer position at PCNYC. The music department at the college added an additional course and needed a professor with experience teaching elementary music who could start “next Tuesday” (Personal Communication, 2018). Moreover, the Facebook friend informed the department chair (who reached out to him) to expect my curriculum vitae

(CV) in order to speed the process along. After a phone interview, I was hired on August

20, 2018, “I am thrilled to have you on board. I read your TOPICS article last year and have shared it with a number of students. I am looking forward to finding out more about your work and to have you share your wisdom and experience with students” (Personal

Communication, 2018). Also, in the emails included new hire paperwork and a syllabus of the class (Appendix E), which, I was told I could change.

“This is a 3-hour, 3-credit class” wrote the chair, he continued, “As I mentioned, also, this is a class for non-music majors: all students will be elementary education

92 majors, but not necessarily musicians. Here is the (minimal) official catalog description

(Personal Communication, 2018):

Figure 3.1: Personal Communication

The course description on the syllabus was more detailed noting,

This course is designed to support the aspiring elementary educator in incorporating music into all aspects of classroom teaching. Through developing listening lessons, learning and teaching songs, creating interdisciplinary connections and improving research/resource skills, students will build a library of lesson plans, ideas, and concepts to use in teaching (Appendix E).

Course concepts included (a) singing and teaching songs, (b) rhythmic speech, (c) listening to music and analyzing music for use in classroom, (d) designing listening lessons, (e) music in cultural context, (f) using music for classroom management, and (g) music integration in core subjects in the elementary classroom. Out of the 28 class meetings, only half of a class during week 18 appeared to be dedicated to cultural connections. This concerned me considering my documented lived experiences, learnings from coursework, and the context of the college’s demographics.

The first in-person campus meeting was held on August 27, 2018 (Image 3.2) with a retired elementary music educator, one out of the three professors teaching the

93 course gave me a more in-depth perspective into how to teach the class. Cultural content seemed to include teaching and singing “Funga Alfia,” learning a dance, and emphasizing

“All of Us”. Instrumentally, students played recorders, harmonicas, kazoo, drums, and keyboards. Students also learned research and writing skills as well as resources for New

York State Standards.

Figure 3.2: Notes from 08/27/18 Meeting

When faced with a similar situation of designing new syllabi, SanGregory (2009) in their self-study dissertation study confessed: “As part of that faculty, I resolved to address diversity by including multicultural literature in my courses” (p. 69); I too decided to merge my learnings from doctoral classes to redesign a syllabus that included literature from coursework (see also Safrina, 2013). As I taught the course across semesters, I realized how I was in a unique classroom context where the majority of student-teachers of color (overwhelmingly women) against the overwhelmingly White women demographic of general and music teacher education and me a Black, Queer, Ivy

League DTER. Realizing how this experience was missing from the literature in music teaching and teacher education research, yet was much-needed given the stronghold of

Eurocentricity in music and music education, I decided to study my experience through a

“critical self-study in which the researcher takes an active, scientific, and systematic view of personal experience in relation to cultural groups identified by the researcher as similar to self (i.e., us) or as others who differ from the self (i.e., them)” (Hughes, Pennington, and Makris, 2012, p. 209). That is, to go for broke (Baldwin, 1963) and queer teacher education research (Hermann-Wilmarth and Bills, 2010) with the “fraught with danger”

(Bullough and Pinnegar, 2001, p. 16), “vulnerable, rebellious, and creative” (Ellis and

Bochner, 2006, p. 433), “not a part of the traditional research canon” (Hughes and

Pennington, 2017, p. 90).

Research Design: Autoethnography

In simple terms, Hughes and Pennington (2017) define autoethnography as a unique researcher perspective in that the “researcher is the subject of the study” (p. 5).

Bullough and Pinnegar (2001) detail autoethnography in teacher education as the author engaging history interlocked with problems and issues that make someone an educator.

Autoethnographic research carefully attends to persons in context and to varying lengths portray charter development and dramatic action about something at stake in the story.

Additionally, autoethnography must offer fresh perspectives on established truths.

In my study, I was inspired by Ellis and Bochner (2006), who described autoethnography as showing:

struggle, passion, embodied life and the collaborative creation of sense-making in situations in which people have to cope with dire consequence and loss of meaning. Autoethnography wants the reader to feel, to empathize, and to do something, to act. It needs the researcher to be vulnerable and intimate. Intimacy is a way of being, a mode of caring, and it shouldn’t be used as a vehicle to produce distanced theorizing. (p. 433)

Specifically, in my autoethnography, I engaged in ethnographic work as “a full member in a research group or setting” (Anderson, 2006, p. 375). In collecting and analyzing data,

I employed “analytic reflexivity” (p. 375) recognizing how majoritarian narratives exclude and/or silence. And; as Black-Queer DTER, I ensured that I had “a visible narrative presence in the written text” (Chapter IV). Further, attending to the key features of autoethnography identified by Anderson (2006), I engaged dialogically informants beyond myself and remained committed to improving theoretical understandings of broader social phenomena.

Defining and Refining Autoethnographies

Whereas there is agreement that autoethnography centers the researcher as full members in dialogue with participants critically examining and improving problems of practice and research (Hughes et al., 2012), there are two diverging perspectives on autoethnography. Some researchers favor an evocative autoethnography—embedding the personal in the political as necessary to make sense of and theorize individual beliefs and practices (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001; Ellis & Bochner, 2006) while others call for analytical autoethnographies, in which researchers critically reflect to improve existing theoretical understandings (Anderson, 2006; Denzin, 2006). I briefly describe each below as I compose a (m)ode of autoethnography that plays with concepts from both.

Evocative autoethnography. Evocative autoethnographic writing agenda is clear. This form wants to create and theorize from muddling through the complexities of people orchestrating lived experiences in problematic contexts. Denzin (2006) denotes evocative writings include:

Fiction-stories, poetry, performance texts, polyvocal texts, reader’s theatre, responsive readings, aphorisms, comedy and satire, visual representations, allegory, conversation, layered accounts, writing stories, and mixed genres. Creative nonfiction, performance writing, mysteries, memories, personal histories, and cultural criticism. (p. 420)

The writing is influenced by artifacts gathered from student and teacher writings (e.g. assignments/projects, papers, lesson plans, journals/memos), family and classroom photos, audio recordings (e.g. class sessions, music, digital media), newspapers articles, and personal communication (Hughes and Pennington, 2017).

Evocative autoethnography was employed by Codell’s (1999) Educating Esmé whereby the researcher episodically reconstructed her first-year teaching majority Black

97 students at a Chicago urban elementary school. It was also employed by queer lesbian teacher educators Hermann-Wilmarth and Bills (2010) to document their attempts to move five lesbian pre-service teachers (one self-identified as African-American and

Christian) to take-up an “LGBT-related activist stance” (p. 258). To do so, the researchers first had to “open ourselves up for analysis” (p. 260) which was to subvert

“the traditional design, the traditional data, and traditional research analysis” (p. 259) by queering self, students, and classroom pedagogy. Jacqueline Woodson’s (2014) Brown

Girl Dreaming is a poetic evocative autoethnography constructed by the author revisiting her hometown gathering family photos and listening to elders and friends retell stories of her student experiences as a queer African-American child growing up in the segregated

South. Lastly, Thi Bui’s (2018) graphic novel (in the style of a comic book) entitled The

Best We Could Do is an autoethnographic art of the journey of girl to womanhood of a

Vietnamese immigrant (and teacher); and, her families struggle to escape war-torn

Vietnam while grappling with the importance of community and identity in the U.S.

Specific to music teacher education research, Byrdie-Leigh Bartleet (2009),

Bartlett and Ellis (2010), and Gouzouasis and Ryu (2015) endorse making autoethnography sing. Bartleet (2009), an Australian female band conductor, found herself disturbed with passivity and loss of enthusiasm with teaching the Western

European Classical canon. She remembered personal connections of admiration and fascination with her secondary and graduate school all White-male ensemble conductors.

Yet, she felt the same lack of engagement and relationship building with repertoire that students displayed through body language, facial expressions, and flat instrumental tonality. “Reading all these texts on autoethnography” wrote the musician as she began to

98 reflect on her practice, “there’s an inner voice that keeps saying this is useful for musicians who don’t mind making themselves vulnerable and who want to grow” (pp.

725-726). So, Bartleet shaped artifacts (journal entries written after rehearsals, photographs, and press clippings) into “dialogue and scenes, characterization and a plot…add sensory colors, sounds, and movements” (p. 728) in order to explore the differences between her beliefs and practices. In her way, evocative ethnographic writing allowed her to openly talk, unlock, and reveal the complexities of music teaching by releasing her deepest thinking “conducting does not revolve around scores and supposed musical issues. It’s much more about the relationships that I have built with people though our music-making over the years” (p. 729). Autoethnographic writing opened possibilities for rethinking the role that writing and words can play in the creative process that “no traditional musicological method” (p. 729) would have afforded her.

Design-wise, Bartleet & Ellis (2010) constructed singing autoethnographies as (1) designed to communicate, (2) creative, and (3) orchestrate the complex harmonies and counterpoint of rendering lived experiences. Ellis was mourning the death of a brother and husband and healing from a tear in her anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus. All the conflict took her away from making music; “But, instead of running away from the situation” (p. 1), Ellis decided to lean into it with an autoethnographic study challenging her to:

find the cadence point, to breathe, and to listen to the reverberations of my pain and sadness. Autoethnography helped me to hear the beauty and vulnerability in that phrase and understand the reasons for its dark timbre, competing melodies and restless pules…” (p. 1)

She goes on to explain that autoethnography:

saved me from being less than passionately involved in my career and from being so mired in grief that I couldn’t breathe. Doing autoethnography made me feel that my work was worthwhile, that I could contribute to making the world a better place, show my students alternate ways to survive grief and reframe their lives, and equip myself to make sense of the life I was living. (p. 2)

Merging music and autoethnography as partner methods for evoking a change in practices toward well-being that is rooted in the powerful personal relationships of historically situated individual contexts and research sites, Bartleet & Ellis (2010) engage dialogically:

Bartleet: By using music as a framework for our autoethnographies…we can go straight to the senses and emotions of the listener. As musicians, we bring our bodies, feelings, and intuition to our work, and this can evoke powerful relationships with those who we’re performing alongside, and those who are listening to us.

Ellis: This is how music and method come together in their goals: Autoethnography with its roots in systemic ethnographic method reaches for feeling, evocation, and embodiment in its narrative presentation, and what it asks of the reader. Music provides an exemplar for how to do that. Music has both feet in the creative arts, in feeling and evocation. As it reaches now for a way to explore itself and add the personal to the professional, its turns to autoethnography to pave the way. Together the two provide a harmonious serenade.

Bartleet: Or counterpoint…In music, counterpoint means that while individual voices may be different in rhythm and contour they are interconnected when played together. (p. 13)

As they render visible, evocative ethnographies are furthest from claims of generalizability due a focus on aesthetics of the arts and nuances of telling stories as analysis and theorizing “rather than Truth claims and link to science” (Ellis & Bochner,

2006, p. 434).

Analytical autoethnographies. Analytical ethnographic writings are commonly characterized by the study’s design rooted in generalizations or claims to established

100 knowledge or theory (Chang, 2008; Ellis & Bochner, 2006; Hughes & Pennington, 2017).

Ellis and Bochner (2006) classify this writing aims for generalization—the development toward context-free applied universal claims of truth. For Anderson (2006), analytical autoethnography’s writings seeks to refine, elaborate, extend, and sensitize traditional qualitative theoretical understandings—not transcend to new sociocultural theory.

Like evocative autoethnographies, analytical autoethnographic researchers are full members in the research group or setting dialoguing with others. Except that in analytical autoethnographies, the researcher is a published author with skills in “identifying and describing insider meanings…for accessing certain kinds of data (Hughes & Pennington,

2017, p. 102). “Implied in this statement” wrote self-study methodologist LaBoskey

(2004), “is a distinction between teachers and researchers” (p. 827). Or, positioning the researcher as a reflexive expert seeking clarity and consistency with traditional epistemological assumptions (Denzin, 2006; Ellis & Bochner, 2006; Hughes &

Pennington, 2017).

Analytical autoethnographies have been employed in music and music education research (e.g., Netsinghe, 2012; Thompson, 2015). Thompson’s (2015) analytic autoethnography is grounded on in Ladson-Billings’ culturally relevant pedagogy, thereby being linked to a traditional conceptual framework. Even though Thompson’s identity as Black male matched the incarcerated youth in his self-study, his formal music education identity prominent inside the classroom and a popular music (e.g. Gospel and

Hip Hop) identity outside of the classroom became sources of professional and personal tension. Consistent with culturally relevant pedagogy tenet of centering the cultural practices of students, Thompson’s reflections enabled him to argue for teaching practices

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“grounded in and relate to the culture of both students and the neighborhoods from which they come” (p. 424) when teaching music in correctional settings. Netsinghe (2012) employed autoethnography as method—empirical research supported by larger tenets and constructions shaping the study (Hughes & Pennington, 2017). Netsinghe sought to

“establish trustworthiness and authenticity” (p. 11), making sense of one’s practice through information gleaned from personal journals, photographs, performance programs, records of achievement, and notes from talks with family members.

Netsinghe's autoethnography is deemed trustworthy and consistent because data collection, methods, instruments, procedures, and analysis directly align with larger epistemological and ontological foundations of self-study (Hughes & Pennington, 2007).

Ellis & Bochner (2006) described this as bringing the story “under the control of reason, logic, and analysis” (p. 433). Or, a way of asserting “continuity with the past, while charting a more stable future” (Denzin, 2006, p. 422). Either way, analytic autoethnographers depart from researchers who draw on autoethnography to center, create, and transcend selves in research inquiries based upon myriad of qualitive methodologies (Hughes & Pennington, 2017) or modes.

Autoethnographic (m)ode. Researchers who sing of evocative autoethnography critique analytical choristers as carrying the traditional tune that pauses the story in a bounded context-free way. Analytical autoethnographers point to emotionality and performative nature of evocative autoethnography as too personal and subjective to yield generalizable results in a diversity of contexts and conditions. The affordances and silences of both autoethnographic forms can be summed up in the age-old which comes first debate: theory or the theorist? Empirical research proven trustworthy by scholars or

102 truth of scholars’ lived experiences? Regardless of epistemological and methodical alignment, Hughes and colleagues (2012) make clear: autoethnographic scholarship has a

17% or less acceptance rate for first-trier, masked peer-reviewed journals. For this reason, I propose Autoethnographic (M)ode as a queering of evocative and analytic writing with the aim of celebrating and complicating both while going for broke and transcending each.

Rooted in foundations of ethnographic traditions, Autoethnographic (M)ode is a form of narrative composition rendering the author—in relationship with others—all of whom are situated within a bounded historical, sociocultural, and political setting. That is, the researcher is a complete member of research setting and assembles a myriad of modes: qualitative data collection methods, instruments, and procedures necessary to visibly narrate the tonality (totality) of the context and researcher’s analytic reflexivity while in dialogue with participants and professionals (professors, colleagues), problematizing practice. Here, researcher and participants are implicated experts of individual lived experiences who collectively contribute, create, and cement beliefs and practices about the way things work with and in the world. In this way, writing the narrative is a critical activity aligning with analytical agendas seeking consistency with existing epistemological and ontological foundations while also creating new frameworks to reimagine traditions. That being autoethnographic m(odes) not only evoke but also are deeply rooted in rendering analysis of researcher framing of discursive interactions and individual/collective agency to reimagine oppressive situations. However, whether bolstering established traditions or erecting new ones, resonance and reverberation

(generalizability, trustworthiness, validity) rests with delineations and transparency of

103 instruments drawn for inquiry and activities that led from the introduction, development, and recapitulation of the problem identified and themes composed through the specified mode(s) of the study. Taken together, autoethnographic (m)odes seeks to home/hone or be a both/and for various representations of autoethnographic research and simultaneously document sources of evidence to reclaim individual well-being along a collective pursuit of equity and justice.

Sources of Evidence

In this section, I detail the data I employed to answer my research questions. That is, I describe the context, setting, participants, unit of analysis, as well as data collection methods, instruments and procedures.

Context, Setting, and Participants

Similar to Thompson (2015) who taught music to Black youth whom looked like him in a prison; that being, outside of his traditional site of study. I too am a Black male teaching music to racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse students outside of the traditional music classroom (general early childhood & elementary music education majors). MUSIC 3000 is the music teacher education course I facilitate for elementary pre-service students at PCNYC (Appendix D). Class population for 3 out of 3 semesters have overwhelmingly been women. Meaning, each semester, 24 of 25 students were female and the majority identified as Latina.

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I am an Ivy League doctoral student teaching at a public college, which further complicates the context and setting (Saavedra, 2011; Villenas, 1996). Anzaldúa

(1987/2007), a Chicana and queer feminist researcher, reminds me to make myself

“conscious of the Shadow-Beast, stare at the lust…for power and destruction we see on its face, discern among its features the undershadow that the reigning order of heterosexual males project on our Beast” (p. 42). This means patriarchy and power is a

Shadow-Beast of male queerness; and, I must endeavor to be conscious of and lean into the historical, sociocultural, political, and economic constructions of patriarchy and the oppressions women endure. This is additionally compounded by a legacy of ivory tower academics colonizing communities of color. I believe that “teaching is an interpersonal act, that we teach who we are, and that though there is a connection between our beliefs and our actions, we can sometimes behave in ways contradictory to our values”

(LaBoskey, 2004, p. 843). Meaning, through this self-study in teacher education (S-

STEP), although I seek immediate improvement of teaching and learning, Black and

Chicana feminists directly implicate me in sustaining oppression (Anzaldúa, 1987/2007;

Elenes, 2000; Saavedra & Pérez, 2012; Combahee River Collective, 1977). Or, “I came to realize that I couldn’t know it all” (Bartleet & Ellis, 2010, p. 3).

In this study, the complexities of context, setting, researcher and participants at

PCNYC position autoethnography as the most appropriate tool to gather information from the researcher-designed MUSIC 3000 course described. It allows me to merge students’ and professor lived experiences with a critical examination and analysis of the

“historical and sociopolitical makings of music in schools” (Appendix D). By doing so, this project seeks alignment with improvement-aimed tenets of S-STEP, a belief that

105 practice improves based upon “careful and thorough understanding of our settings, which in return results in an enhanced understanding of practice” (LaBoskey, 2004, p. 845).

Unit of Analysis

Critical race theory argues people’s narratives are the essential unit of analysis to understanding lived experiences and how rendering experience counters and confirms accumulated knowledges (Bell, 2010; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995, 2000). Delpit

(1988) too argued that the success of schools is based on discourses that accrue to upper- middle-class White interests that support a “culture of power” (p. 283), which must be analyzed in order to be transcended. Analysis in critical pedagogy center people’s “words and themes” (Souto-Manning, 2010, p. 37), “ideas, values, concepts, and hopes, as well as the obstacles” (Freire, 1970, p. 101), which were gathered from researcher and participants in dialogue. That means, for this study, the unit of analysis is self (I, Deejay

Robinson, the DTER). Be that as it may, students by extension also participants within the study (Loughran et al., 2004).

Data Collection Methods, Instruments, and Procedures

I employed LaBoskey’s (2004) explanation of the data collection process being purpose-driven and flexible:

Since the purpose of teaching is the facilitation of learning, we can only understand and evaluate our efforts and monitor the improvement of our practice, by attending to the cognitive, emotional, physical, social, and moral/ethical development of our students. We need to employ strategies, therefore, that will make transparent to us its variation, complexity, and fluidity. Simultaneously, we need to use methods that will provide evidence to us, to our students, to our colleagues that we are learning from what we are discovering; that we are reframing our thinking and transforming our practice in defensible ways. (p. 828)

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As such, data collection for this project was situated in the context and rooted in the everyday real-time interactions of teaching and learning within the context of a music teacher education undergraduate course for non-majors (Torre, 2009; Hughes &

Pennington, 2017; Loughran, et al., 2004; Lytle et al., 2018). Data from the music course taught at PCNYC were collected between August 2019 and January 2020, following results of semester evaluations. In the Fall 2019 semester, MUSIC 3000 was offered once a week for 3 hours. Data from the researcher-designed MUSIC 3000 course (Appendix

D) were primarily obtained from materials/instruments contained within the three thematic units of the class:

Unit 1: Ethnography of Self and Others

Unit 2: Urban Music Education, Practices, Problems, & Promises

Unit 3: Unit Design Project

I focused these thematic units based on findings from my exploratory study; these were the units that produced most pertinent data related to my research questions.

As the professor of the course, I positioned myself as an ethnographer, collecting course data in written and audio formats (Souto-Manning, 2010). Written data were gathered from students and professor narratives/memos written in a notebook dedicated for the course only. Further, seeking to document researcher and participant written and verbal discourse as the primary data in my autoethnographic S-STEP study led me to position student and teacher both as learners of curriculum constructed and reconstructed as a result of stories told and written during in-real time interactions (LaBoskey, 2004;

Loughran et al., 2004). I prioritized dialogic teaching, as LaBoskey (2004) detailed,

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The general preference in the field is for group talk rather than unilateral lecture so that knowledge can be socially constructed, all voices heard, personal responsibility encouraged, and assumptions challenged. Such perspective is consistent to be main characteristics of good pedagogy for adult learners in preservice and inservice programs: The privileging of teachers interactions with one another often in communities of learners that are redefining teaching practice. (p. 835)

The agreement to participate and engage were set in the beginning (Loughran et al.,

2004) and continually negotiated by people expressing lived experiences through dialogue that often raises conflict (Souto-Manning, 2010, 2014a). Given the position of power I occupied, permission to participate was confirmed or withdrawn after grades for the course were released and teaching evaluations completed. Students were assured that they could withdraw from the study at any time and that their participation or lack thereof would in no way affect their grade in the course.

Regarding instruments. Data was generated from student narrative papers in units 1 and 2, paper-plate teambuilder in unit 2, all written in-class evaluation and feedback reflections, group work written on large Post-It paper in units 1-2 and day 1 of unit 3, final submissions of group unit design projects in unit 3, and final individual reflection papers in unit 3. Audio data were generated and transcribed for discourse analysis from whole-class audio recordings in units 1-3. Additionally, students’ final unit design projects (group unit map, lesson plans, and research paper) uploaded to a class drive for students to access their curated work (Emdin, 2016) for future teaching and learning situations, served as data.

Written data. Individual student writing (narrative prompts, in-class feedback and evaluation reflections, final reflection paper, paper plate teambuilder) and group written work (large Post-It paper activities and final submissions of group unit design projects)

108 were read, categorized into themes, and then codified into generative themes drawn from teacher’s personal and practical knowledge as “reflection on power, identity, and professional struggle in education” (Souto-Manning, 2010, p. 101). Professor’s written data (teacher notes on lesson plans/in notebook and audio after-class reflections on in- class interactions) were also categorized and codified into generative themes pertaining to professional and practical knowledge on power and identity as I taught and learned with students (Hill, 2006; Green, 2011; Torre, 2009; Villenas, 1996). Additionally, I collected and read students’ narrative prompts, creating a separate word document containing passages and quotes from students’ papers that spoke to the topic of my research study.

The word document did not indicate the author of the quote. Meaning, no student names were attached to quotes. Quotes and passages of interest were stored in the Artifact

Folder on the institutional and secured google drive only accessible by researcher and dissertation committee.

Audio data. Whole-class audio recordings took place in units 1-3, using

QuickTime on the researcher’s password protected personal MacBook Pro. Both musical shares in units 1 and 2 were audio recorded and uploaded to a class drive for students to access and save as an artifact. No other full class recordings were posted for student access. As Freire (1970) wrote, “any situation in which some individuals prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence. The means used are not important; to alienate human beings from their own decision-making is to change them into objects” (p. 85). Whenever audio-recordings of classroom interactions caused discomfort or conflict, I leaned into the conflict by posing: (a) any student(s) wishing not to be recorded have the option to create their own group—which will not affect their

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grade, and (b) problem-pose classroom audio-recording as an inquiry many may

encounter as 21st century practitioners—and collectively move to decide the best ethical

course of action for capturing student-teacher group discourse (Cahill, 2007; Hostetler,

2005; Milner, 2007). These options sought to acknowledge and bring consciousness to

my voice, power, and privilege as the DTER of the self-designed teacher education

course.

MUSIC 3000 Course Data Collection Table Thematic Unit of Audio Data Written Data Study • Full class • Weekly Lesson Plans ONE: meetings • Narrative papers (prompt #1) Ethnography of Self • Researcher • Feedback and Evaluation and Others after-class reflections reflections • Name tents • Worksheets • Teacher memos/Personal communication • Full class • Weekly Lesson Plans meetings • Narrative papers (prompt #2) TWO: • Researcher • Feedback and Evaluation after-class reflections Urban Music reflection • Music and music education Education, Practices, history visuals Problems, & Problems • Paper Plate Activity • Worksheets • Group Post-It paper reflections • Teacher memos/Personal communication • Full class • Final Research paper THREE: meetings • Final individual reflection paper Unit Design Project: • Researcher • Teacher memos/Personal Learning to Teach after-class communication While Teaching to reflection Learn

Table 3.2: MUSIC 3000 Course Data Collection Table

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Exploratory Study3

Attempting to engage pre-service teachers in culturally responsive, collaborative, and creative classrooms (Gay, 2010; Price-Dennis & Souto-Manning, 2011), prior to my dissertation study, I had conducted a four-month (August 2018-December 2018) exploratory critical pedagogy (Souto-Manning, 2010) research project examining how ethnically, racially, and linguistically diverse class of twenty-two (21 females and 1 male) general elementary pre-service teachers make sense of the process of learning to teach

(Britzman, 2003). Of the 22 pre-service teachers, six identified as Latinx, three as Asian, three as African-American, and one as Muslim. Since little to no music education research examined the process of learning to teach from the perspective of teacher- educators of color (McCall, 2018; Hendricks & Dorothy, 2018; Robinson & Hendricks,

2018; Thornton, 2018), this pilot examined: How do the narratives of pre-service general elementary teachers influence their future classroom beliefs and practices?

“By positioning myself as an ethnographer” (Souto-Manning, 2010, p. 101), I collected fieldnotes, recordings, and artifacts as I observed, taught, participated, and interacted with the 22 pre-service teachers. Memos (Horvat, 2013) written in my academic journal, recordings of classroom dialogue and groupwork sessions, student artifacts (papers, written in-class reflections, in-class assignments/activities), and fieldnotes from classroom observations were the sources of data collection. Specific examples included quotes from student narrative prompt papers (McCarthy, 2007),

3 Conducted as course requirement for a doctoral qualitive methods class completed in fall semester 2018.

111 classroom drawings (Souto-Manning and Lanza, 2019), and dialogue/sharing of collaborative music projects (Allsup, 2016; Benedict & Schmidt, 2014; Kaschub, 2014).

During this exploratory study, I piloted Seidman’s (2013) three-interview series.

To participate in the interview the participant (a) self-identity as a person of color, (b) in good academic standing (have an A in the class, meaning participation in study will not negatively or positively impact participant overall grade), and (c) student writing in assignments demonstrate clarity, depth, and transformation of thinking about teaching and learning (as noted in the syllabus). Data from class activities were used to purposefully select a student to interview. The interview participant also agreed to be audio-taped and member check the transcription. Each in-person interview lasted approximately 30 minutes. The first interview explored the participants’ (Jasmine—a pseudonym) own experiences with groupwork during elementary school. The second interview asked participant to describe details of their current experiences with groupwork during the course using “pictures as cues” (Bauer, Colmer, and Wiemelt,

2018, p. 12; see also Diaquoi, 2017), photographs captured during class with my iPhone.

The third interview engaged participant in a meta-reflection connecting the threads from the previous interviews aimed to imagine the way future approaches to group work in curriculum planning “may or may not change” (Diaquoi, 2017, p. 521). Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed into a Microsoft Word document. I read and reread transcripts identifying themes, which were subsequently codified into generative themes

(Freire, 1970; Seidman, 2013; Souto-Manning, 2010) as a means to make sense of the participant’s process of learning to teach. HOMEroom and racing the curriculum

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(competition in the classroom) are two findings pertinent to this work. They are explored below.

HOMEroom

“She [kindergarten teacher] took a lot of pride in us. She would always call us her babies. Even after we left her classroom, it was like a home base—a class we always went back to. And, you can tell that she cared. She was almost like a parent, like a mom.” -Jasmine

The object of the interview is “not persons,” wrote Freire (1970), but rather the thought-language which refer to reality, “their view of the world, in which their generative themes are found” (p. 97). Dialoguing with Jasmine (an African-American female pre-service elementary teacher) revealed that she began the process of learning to teach by being inspired by her former African-American female kindergarten teacher

(Dingus, 2008; Ladson-Billings, 2009). As a current junior in college, Jasmine recalled her kindergarten teacher having high expectations coupled with necessary support to be successful, a pillar of Gay’s (2010) culturally responsive teaching. The class collaborated cooking meals and baking cookies. On Fridays, prizes were selected from a basket celebrating proficiency on spelling tests. Jasmine felt “safe in that class” and the teacher was “somebody that you look-up to…someone that you trust.” This is captured in the section of the interview transcript below:

Jasmine: Home is inclusive. Making everyone feel like they have a place

and voice…I want to make sure that all kids are comfortable. But, I

also want to make sure they have a sense of not running crazy and

stuff like that. Knowing that there is not a person in charge, but

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somebody to guide them, you know. I don’t really like the in-

charge kind of thing. But, there is someone a little bit older than

them who is supposed to make sure they are safe…Like it’s a very

comfortable place.

Deejay: What are skills and practices of being a guide verses controlling?

Jasmine: For example, assignments. You can tell them what you are looking

for, but then you’ll let them go along. For instance, like what you

do sometimes. You’ll tell us something and everybody will be like

“That’s so vague! What are we supposed to do?” And you’re like,

“You guys figure it out.” So kind of like that. Giving them

instructions and letting them take the lead in what they are trying

to do and get across. Versus, [saying] “This is what I want” and not

leaving them any room to be themselves.

Jasmine casted her kindergarten teacher as “like a parent” and the classroom as a home.

However, Freire (1998) warns against simplified reductions of teachers to parents. He posits that framing teaching and learning under paternalistic lens has the potential to manipulate (Freire, 1970), coddle (Freire, 1998), and/or control students, “a practice that favors the haves against the have-nots; a discourse that denies the existence of social classes, their conflicts, and a political practice entirely in favor of the powerful” (Freire,

1998, p. 15). Yet, Jasmine was aware of and grappled with issues of race, social class, and power within curriculum.

Racing the curriculum. Jasmine’s experiences bolster critical race scholars’ findings of disengagement—specifically from students of color—in classrooms of

114 competition and individualism (Ladson-Billings, 1998; Love, 2015). That is, teaching and learning is influenced by cultural differences and “by the context in which it takes place”

(Souto-Manning, 2010, p. 98). The traditional context of U.S. education constructs deficit notions of children of color as empty depositors and bodies to be controlled (Dewey,

1902; Freire, 1970) by neoliberal and neoconservative policies promoting individualism and competition (Benedict & Schmidt, 2014; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). According to Jasmine, these policies “weed out” students into categories of “bad and good.” She expounds referring back to the criteria for childhood elementary fifth-grade farming field trip:

It was definitely about being good or bad. And I know that is why they [the teachers] threw the essay in there. Cause if you think about it, how well can a fifth grader really write an essay? I am not trying to put them down because [5th graders] can. But, is that really something you are basing them to go on a trip off of?

Neoliberalism works against collaboration in homerooms where kids want to take part in creating and building knowledge (Farrell et al., 1988; Ladson-Billings, 2009). This theme was also present in another example as Jasmine recounted a then recent experience during field observations of an elementary math class. The teacher was Chinese and seemed to ignore the needs of an African-American student who forgot his math book.

Shying away from naming racism, Jasmine laments, “I don’t want to say it’s because the classroom was full of little Black children,” she goes on, “but I feel like when you’re in elementary school, you’re still young. And, I feel like she should have tried to include him somehow.” This indicates her vision of culturally responsive teaching as providing experiences and supports to ensure Black children are included and academically successful in her future classroom.

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If teaching involves a capacity to challenge students and “loving one’s students, even realizing that love alone is not enough” (Freire, 1998, p. 15); then, care for and inclusion of perspectives and cultures of students and teachers of color becomes essential in Jasmine’s construction learning to teach (Gay, 2010; King, 2008). The final collaborative course project engaged students in co-creating and co-teaching an original thematic unity of study by merging research literature encountered in-class and student’s interest in a self-selected social justice topic (Picower, 2012). “Confronting the realities of teaching” (Kaschub, 2014 p. 126) a racially, ethnically, and linguistically group of learners during the winter holiday season, Jasmine’s unit design project group (self-titled the Slay Belles) writes:

As future educators in the elementary schools of America…We would like to provide an opportunity for students who are often marginalized to see their own cultures represented [.] With the holiday season quickly approaching…it is crucial to expand the discussion of the holidays celebrated within each culture and home, in order to welcome differences and open student’s minds to the world that surrounds them [emphasis added].

Here, the Slay Belles made a change in their curriculum when Muslim students said, “We have winter holidays that are not in December!” while they were co-teaching their lesson.

This prompted a lively discussion that led to a change in student’s practice. In this instance, students displayed two tenets of Gay’s (2010) culturally responsive teaching: student-input and dialogue must be centered in an improvisatory curriculum and teacher reflexivity. When asked why increases of minority representation in curriculum is needed, Jasmine vocalized:

There is too much emphasis on structure of school and very little emphasis on the things that these kids have to face daily. I believe that if teachers spoke to these kids more about what they had to experience outside of school then we would stop losing so many young Black kids to the evil cycles of the streets. I believe that those cycles can be broken if spoken about.

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While Jasmine acknowledges that her practice of learning to teach is “changing” her past and present experiences have taught her the importance of “knowing the students”

(Freire, 1970), being flexible in curricular design, and building opportunities for the marginalized to see, honor, and love self.

As I reflected on the peculiarities of participant-student to teacher educator interview, I was keenly aware that the object of the interview is “not persons” but rather the thought-language which refer to reality, “their view of the world, in which their generative themes are found” (Freire, 1970, p. 97). For this pilot study, interviewing presented many challenges. First, interviewing made Jasmine, the person, the subject— not the language in which she uses to make sense of the reality she experiences. Meaning, the confidentiality of the student (participant) has a higher potential of being breeched because the interview solely focused on Jasmine and not her in relationship with others.

This means that, second, interviews removed student and DTER from in-time context of collectively (as a full class or in groups) dialoguing and co-composing projects, which is at the heart of the critical cycle. And third, interviewer (teacher) and interviewee

(student-teacher) are no longer complete-members of the research site. That is, interviews occurred at separate time(s) and place(s) outside of the sanctioned course time. In this case, removing two members from the sanctioned and valued community/course time.

This increased the potential to reinscribe hierarchies, sew division, and replicate oppression that both theory and method of the study sought to eradicate. It was reflecting on the shortcomings of interviews that I moved to an autoethnographic self-study of teaching and teacher education practices.

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Acknowledging and humbling to the findings of the pilot study, including but not limited to generative themes discussed above, the following section focuses on revised data reduction methods for my dissertation research. Based on learnings from my exploratory study and piloting of interviews, I decided that no interviews or focus groups would occur; instead, I would engage in an autoethnographic study.

Data Reduction, Analysis, and Connections to Research Questions

As I collected data, I engaged in five actions to reduce class artifacts (e.g. lesson plans and student work) and audio recordings into a single document entitled a Rap Sheet

(Appendix B) complied following each weekly session. The Rap Sheets were transcribed documents, attending to physical place and emotional space (Emdin, 2016) or intellectual, emotional, physical, social, and ethical interactions of the classroom

(Loughran et al., 2004).

As can be seen in Appendix B, each Rap Sheet was organized into two sections of student and teacher context and interaction. The document was constructed by (1) reviewing lesson plan notes for points of interest, (2), reviewing student feedback and evaluation forms, (3) transcribing full class recording into Rap Sheet, (4) transcribing researcher after-class reflection connecting researcher self-talk to moments of in-class interactions on the Rap Sheet, (5) reviewing Rap Sheet with student feedback and evaluation forms and email class celebrating learnings, addressing concerns, and items to prepare for the following class. All data sources (e.g. group Post-It paper reflection, Rap

Sheet, audio recordings) were uploaded to a password-protected Google folder.

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Reducing many weekly points of class data into a single-document served both emic and etic analysis purposes. From the emic perspective, the lesson plan, audio recordings, and student feedback and evaluations provided internal triangulation of the what, who, how, and why of each weekly class interaction. As Freire (1970) denoted, this is done “in order to evaluate preliminary findings…develop the codifications to be used in the [next] thematic investigation” (p. 112) or in the following week’s class. Weekly emic analyses was completed by the DTER.

After engaging in the construction of weekly Rap Sheets, further reduction came at the end of the semester, when I had an accumulation (17 weeks) of Rap Sheets and artifacts needing triangulation. This is when I engaged etic analysis, “discussed by the entire team…of professionals” (Freire, 1970, p. 112); in my case, my dissertation advisors. In the etic analysis process the DTER did not complete analysis in isolation.

This is because

such analysis requires the autoethnographer to begin separating narration from analysis. To achieve this challenging task, the autoethnographer must deliberately separate the emotionally loaded reporting from the interpretive analytical reporting. In other words, the autoethnographer can give an analytical etic rationalization of [their] emotional emic experiences. This technique involves two methodological considerations of which…when the researcher is the only source of data and is the only one interpreting the data, there is limited opportunity for assemblage or triangulation, and therefore limited reliability and trustworthiness. (Hughes & Pennington, 2017, p. 66)

During etic analysis the 17 weeks of Rap Sheets and artifacts were coded for metaphors, key events, episodes and encounters (Hughes & Pennington, 2017). Then these codes were codified into what Freire (1970) called generative themes. After which, relationships and contradictions were supported by evidence or supported the creation of conceptual theory generated from the generative themes (Hughes & Pennington, 2017).

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Throughout the process, “data collection and analysis are intertwined until examples are explained” (Hughes & Pennington, 2017, p. 67).

Critical Narrative Analysis (CNA)

Regarding institutions as complex systems of evolving historical, cultural, and sociopolitical structures of social interactions and discourses as ways of behaving and being in the world including texts, verbal and written language, values, beliefs, and social identities, I engaged in critical narrative analysis (Souto-Manning, 2014b, 2019). Hence, institutional discourses are a myriad of valued communication forms and cultural expectations that reconstruct foundational knowings shaping everyday social interactions, relationships, and experiences. It is the constant meddling of context, language, and social interactions that discourse analysis seeks to untangle when studying social phenomena (Souto-Manning, 2014b), such as the experiences of a Black-Queer DTER teaching music to predominantly Latinx pre-service students in a public college serving predominantly Latinx students (classified as a Hispanic-serving institution).

Souto-Manning (2010) and (2014b) proposes that analyzing discourses affords an entryway for students and teacher to be vulnerable and make connections to situations in our own lives and practices within schools and schooling. With the understandings that individuals make sense of their realities through discourses mediated by personal and social/institutional encounters and that discourse can serve to maintain the status quo,

Souto-Manning (2014b) asked critical researchers to consider what moral and ethical good(s) comes from analyzing discourses to (a) identify societal/institutional power relations and (b) theorize possibilities for change yet never invigorate the individual to

120 enact real-time transformation—especially when engaging research with bodies of color

(Souto-Manning & Winn, 2017).

Critical Narrative Analysis (CNA) is a theoretical and methodically tool developed by Souto-Manning (2012; 2014) that:

(a) positions lived experiences as the source of analytic critique of institutional

and societal hierarchies, thereby aligning with autoethnography and critical

race theory’s pillar of narratives and counternarratives documenting lived

experiences of the oppressed (Milner & Howard, 2013; Solórzano & Yosso,

2002);

(b) proposes that individuals make sense of their experiences through mixing

micro (personal) and macro (community, institutional) encounters and

confrontations, thereby mirroring the critical cycle whereby dialogue zooms in

and zooms out allowing space for the problem to be deconstructed from

multiple vantages and lived experiences (Freire, 1970; Souto-Manning, 2010);

narcissistic definitions of critical and reframe everyday social interactions as

spaces for oppression to be challenged and changed, connecting critical race

theories, critical pedagogy, and self-study in that they are focused on

(re)claiming well-being; and

(d) distinguishes “turning points” (p. 176), linguistic and grammatical shifts

resulting in-the-moment performance of positive change and transformation,

performed by a “subject plus active verb” (Souto-Manning, 2014, p. 176)

sentence construction during dialogue.

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It would not be redundant to state that CNA’s focus on people’s words, ideas, values, concepts, hopes, and obstacles emerging from experience keeps attention to discourse—as opposed to the individual themselves (Freire, 1970, Souto-Manning,

2010). Therefore, I posit critical narrative analysis is this study’s instrument of analysis for problematizing power behind language while in dialogue and revealing the potential for teacher and students to negotiate and transform oppressive institutional discourses while affirming individual and collective humanity.

Limitations

Two limitations are penitent to this self-study—one if which applies to all self- studies seeking to transcend or reimagine exiting theoretical assumptions and the other pertains to the researcher’s vulnerability. First, as noted earlier, this autoethnography and the accompanying course from which data were collected was heavily influenced by the researcher’s subjectivity from conception, on through context, and in the renderings raising generalizability, trustworthiness, and validity limits (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001;

Hughes & Pennington, 2017; Loughran et al., 2004). There is no way around this reality.

Hermann-Wilmarth & Bills (2010) fully explain:

As researchers, we had to recognize the limits of our participation in the group, and that our own subjectivities, suggestions, agendas, ideas, contributions, and advice…may not have impact until long after the data collection and analysis— long after the study itself—was over. As such, it was possible that our data would provide us little in the way of looking at what [music] teacher education students need from their undergraduate experiences (p. 266).

Meaning, this study was limited to this specific time until taken up and applied in other contexts.

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Secondly, researcher vulnerability comprises another limitation. Bartleet (2009) expounds: “Somehow writing about my conducting for this autoethnography is forcing me to exorcise my demons, and it’s hard work. I’m realizing the problems I have with the conducting profession, and they’re really dark and destructive” (p. 717). Bartleet & Ellis

(2010) in concert sing:

This is no small challenge, particularly for musicians who have been so accustomed to keeping such personal characteristics and problems from public view [.] Like autoethnographers, musicians grapple with exposing their secrets to the world, knowing that once they are out there these secrets cannot be taken back” (p. 10).

As such, even with the consent given self to carry out the study (Teachers College IRB,

2020), I acknowledge the risks are that of any other Black-Queer person of color living in the United States of America.

Conclusion

I detailed the methodology for this dissertation study in this chapter. In the following chapter, I present my autoethnographic (m)ode. As you will see, there are multiple sections to the following chapter in order to keep the autoethnography intact and in narrative form. As such, unlike typical dissertation findings chapters, there is a Prelude section prior to the autoethnography and an Encore section following the autoethnography. References are footnoted not to interrupt the flow of the text and photos and figures are interspersed as opposed to numbered and labeled. I did so purposefully and intentionally, in hopes that it affords both analytical and evocative dimensions to the reader.

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Chapter IV

AUTOETHNOGRAPHY

Prelude

The following autoethnographic (m)ode is a unique narrative composition where the author is the subject of the study engaging history interlocked with problems and issues surrounding self in schools and schooling (Hughes & Pennington, 2017). The aim of this autoethnography is not to solve race and racism in music teacher education

(Brown, 2004). Rather, its aim is to invite the educator to provoke, challenge, illuminate, better understand, facilitate, and articulate the significance of race and social class in individual practitioners’ beliefs and professional knowledge (LaBoskey, 2004) as well as the collective process of contributing to either reimagining unjust educational practices or continuing the status quo of race and class inequality in teacher education (Brown, 2004).

With this aim, the following composite narratives (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002) inquire into how curricular stories are constructed as mirrors and windows (Bishop, 1990), woven to reveal the ways in which dominant theories and ideologies affect the discourses and identities of soon-to-be teachers—even some White ones—pointing toward educational practitioners of color analyzing and naming injustices documented within their own life histories reclaiming individual and collective humanity.

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Design-wise Chapter IV is composed of an introductory poem and four individual sections: i. context. child. curriculum, ii. student studying music, iii. music teacher teaching, iv. doctoral student in music teacher education creating a collectively constructed autoethnography of the researcher—in cultural relationship with others— bounded in a historical, geopolitical, and socioeconomic setting. To do so, I assembled a myriad of modes: qualitative data collection methods, instruments, procedures, and analysis necessary to visibly narrate the tonality (totality) of the context and researcher’s analytic reflexivity. Qualitative data collection methods included ethnographic gathering of two sets of data: professional and personal. Professional data pertained directly to paid employment in schools and schooling including being on scholarship as a student: publications and presentations, evaluations/assignments (e.g. student/teacher observations and feedback, final exams), professional journals of school interactions, photographs of teaching and learning in schools, video and audio recordings of school interactions, directors’ notes from performance programs, records of achievement, cards and reflections from students, email communications, and financial records (i.e. paystubs, student loans). Personal data aligned with life outside of the classroom: talks with family members, photographs of family members, recorded videos, social media posts (e.g.

Facebook), personal journals, records of achievements, and talks with friends. Three family deaths occurred during the course of the study. Two of which I traveled back home to Raleigh, North Carolina and Blair, South Carolina for funerals, providing unexpected, lengthy, and intense opportunities to dialogue with family. That is to say, to lift up and honor my ancestor’s legacy, only names of the deceased (noted by birth – year

125 of death) appear in the autoethnography. All other names of family, friends, colleagues, and/or students are pseudonyms.

Once artifacts were gathered, I used emotional recall and drew on sensory recollections of significant moments throughout my musical development (Bartleet,

2009). For example, a neuropsychological evaluation in graduate school or witnessing the

Boston Marathon Bombings unfold on television while an in-service music teacher in

Boston Public Schools. Once significant moments were identified, re-membering of racial/cultural memories to bring to mind emotionality, spirituality, and actions of a particular event was employed to put those racialized memories back together in the present (Dillard, 2008). The process of re-membering through artifacts and critical reflection (Freire, 1970) revealed stories about me and about the profession at-large highlighting few boundaries between my professional and private life (Bartleet, 2009).

Next, I researched and read the works of other autoethnographers and writers

(Anderson, 2006; Bullough & Pinnergar, 2001; Ellis, 2006; Ellis & Bochner, 2006;

Denzin; 2004; Hughes, Pennington, & Markis, 2012). I also read writers such as

Woodson (2014) and Bui (2017). My goal became understanding the historical tradition of social science ethnographic research and writing. However, while those authors directly equipped me with theoretical and epistemological foundations of autoethnographic research, they did not capture the musical aesthetic I wanted to convey.

Hughes & Pennington (2017) then connected me with Bartleet (2009) and Bartleet &

Ellis (2010), inviting me to make autoethnography sing unleashing ethnographic music education approaches for evocatively self-reflexive writing, narrative construction, and musical creativity. The ways in which these researchers enthralled me with their writing

126 became something I admired and led me to remix in my composing of this autoethnographic m(ode) given I once was a singer upon the stage. Now I write research melodies upon the page. Writing is my new voice.

As construction of the composite narratives began, I was reminded of Bartleet &

Ellis (2010) advice that at the heart of autoethnography and music is the desire to communicate engaging personal stories which inspire audiences to react, reflect, and in many cases be moved to action. But who is my intended audience? And, by what discourses would most likely move people to action? Or as characterized by Emdin

(2016) research and teaching is not just “telling students what you know; it’s about knowing how to share what you know so that it is optimally received… invoking the emotional responses that exist within the spaces” (pp. 51-52) where the story is told. In this case, colloquiums and syntax of Afrocentric discourses (i.e. Ebonics), “which are often looked upon with disdain by mainstream society instead of being applauded for the ingenuity in its creation” (Gay, 2010, p. 86) are used as personal power of persuasion to make the “point [I] wish to make, rather than be waiting for an ‘authority’ to grant permission” (p. 105).

I engaged a topic-associative style, where more than one issues can be addressed at once through episodic, anecdotal, thematic, and investigations where ideas dovetail and emerge from one another; narrative response, introductions and preludes necessary to set the stage for future substantive themes; multiple positions presenting self, use of indirect and holistic communication of past spiritualities, knowledges, and wisdom (i.e. ancestors) to interact and make sense of encounters; and, playing with and on words, creating cadences to deliver and evoke cultural expressiveness and memories, dramatic flair,

127 powerful metaphorical imagery, persuasive effect, and regulate rhythm, meter and flow of the composition (Gay, 2010). To echo Gay (2010),

Communication cannot exist without culture, culture cannot be known without communication and teaching and learning are more effective for ethnically diverse students when classroom communication is culturally responsive…[T]eachers, who do not know or value these realities will not be able to fully access and facilitate most of what these students know and can do.” (pp. 76-81)

Therefore, to access my brilliance and communicate it fully, communicative styles outside of traditional scholarly research was essential to culturally narrate the endarkened tonality of my experiences—in high hopes the story is optimally received; while, shifting the epistemological compass of music teacher education research.

Hughes & Pennington (2017) advised that attempts at studying and writing self in relation to cultural groups in both process and product are deemed “good enough” (p.

180) provided there are links to existing qualitative constructs connecting “traditions and methods in ways that recognize and emphasize similarities” (p. 95). This led me to research and source additional transdisciplinary literature (i.e. news articles, fiction books) and digital media (i.e. YouTube videos) to bolster story and root sense making to classic and contemporary mediums. Once the autoethnography was constructed, I met with my dissertation advisor to identify generative themes (Freire, 1970) aligning with larger epistemological and ontological foundations of the field as a means to strengthen assemblage and bolster trustworthiness and validity of data (Hughes & Pennington,

2017). Themes identified where then coded to the autoethnography for analysis. Building with Souto-Manning (2019), I specifically attended to and highlighted (each a different color) tolls and trolls (emotion and triggers leading up to emotions), instances of physical

128 and mental disturbances, segments atonal to good teaching, and any connections to home

Afrocentric community.

Lastly, the Encore brings backs “greatest hits” revealed by critical narrative analysis (Souto-Manning, 2014b), seeking to identify displays of grammatical and framing agency (or lack thereof) within the autoethnography. For example, grammatical agency is linguistically actualized by use of subject plus active verb (Souto-Manning,

2014b); as in, “I will not be patronized,” I plus will is used to indicate grammatical agency. Similarly, framing agency is where subject aligns with normative discourses. For example, “I cannot hear difference in pitches” I is used to frame the difficulty of encountering Eurocentric music theory aligning with normative discourses. Analysis was then connected back to research questions; and a review of the chapter in a summary.

To rewind, this autoethnographic m(ode) aims to critically narrate and uncloak ideas and experiences “while it tries to use the elements of critical race theory”

(Solórzano & Yosso, 2002, p. 36) to tell stories of lived experiences encountering and pushing through normative discourses shining new mirrors into the multiple realities of learning to teach. What’s to follow is real. Not fictional storytelling (Solórzano & Yosso,

2002). Instead my ancestors and these composite friends, frenemies, and enemies (Emdin in SXSW EDU, 2017) are “grounded in real-life experiences and actual empirical data contextualized in historical sociocultural situations.”

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10:12 AM

My Grandmother came to me this morning as I was showering, washing myself clean watching the soap suds drain a way. She said, “Baby, when you are sick and tired of being sick and tired— you will make a change!”

And then I realized what I had been wrestling with for many, many, many years…

I’ve spent too much of my brain space stressing about and putting everyone else before my needs and wants. That changes today.

I am Black, I am Brilliant, I am Beautiful and Queer. I deserve and will give myself the very best, Today, and every day. #DeejaysLiberation

-Facebook Post, 2019 May 28

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Autoethnography

“European musical concepts of the primitive, barbaric, and savage representation of African music laid down the discursive pathways through which a North American “Negro” would eventually come into being.” -Radano, 2003, p.89 Lying up a nation: Race and Black music

i. context. child. curriculum

Racism. The word really makes people red, especially White people. I fully intend for the 86% supermajority of White music teachers (Elpus, 2015) to make sense of and suffer through how they have treated people of color. Why? Because as James (Jimmy)

Baldwin explains to Margaret Mead (1971) in their Rap on race, “I will not forgive my past crime if I pretend I did not commit it. If I have offended you, I must come to you and say, “I am sorry, please forgive me.” I am only talking about that” (in reelblack, 2017).

That means music education in the United States of America, which must name its complicity and silence in perpetuating historical crimes of White supremacy on dark bodies. To be clear, it is not all White people themselves that I abhor; I want capital punishment of “racist ideas and discrimination” (Kendi, 2016, p. 313) against Black and

Brown folx to be confronted and healed if education in the United States is to become just and equitable. This is why I choose to focus on Abolitionist teaching (Love, 2019) and the need for teachers to confront past and present trauma by writing our own life stories, especially when working with Black and Brown communities. Why? Because no

131 other student or music teacher of color should have to endure the b(l)acklashes of silence, sickness, anger, oppression, depression, isolation, and loneliness that I, Deejay Robinson, have carried, buried, and internalized for far too long…until now.

I would not be fully forthcoming if I also did not admit a salacious relationship with Whites. Being a Lumpenproletariat (Fanon, 1961) dictates the necessity to situate historical constructions of my race, class, gender, and sexuality as powerful knowledge to analyze, criticize, and transform the ways people on the margins of society are constructed. That is, I can play with the power of the oppressor yielding pleasurable and transformative outcomes when done right; and dangerous, if not dire consequences in the slightest of miscalculations. Or, as Baldwin and Mead (1971) rap (dialogue):

Jimmy: And then there’s a big problem with White women [and gay men] who come to you, for the most part, as though you are some exotic, extraordinary, phallic symbol.

Margaret: Yes, as if you’re nothing but a phallic symbol…no head, no arms—

Jimmy: No head, no arms, No nothing[!] Actually an act of love becomes an act of murder in which you commit suicide. In my case, I simply split the scene completely and …(laughing)… spent a year in Paris tearing up the town, of course I got torn up too!

Or as Bumpy in the TV series The Godfather of Harlem (2019) stated, “there were so many centuries where we did not own our own bodies. Someone else owned them.

Maybe that’s why it seem easy to give it away.” Meaning, there are links to the

“interlocking nature of American racism and sexism” (Kendi, 2016, p. 191) where bodies of color are positioned as Big Bottom objects. The 1832 publication of The Rose Bud,

“the South’s first weekly magazine for children” (Kendi, 2016, p. 171) is an exemplar of

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“freak shows” (p. 171) containing novels and children’s books aimed to produce racist ideas and inculcate young children. Kendi (2016) explains,

Southern White children played master, or worse overseer, with enslaved Black playmates, ordering them, ridiculing them, and tormenting them. Enslaved children took solace in outwitting their free playmates in physical games, such as anything from running, jumping, or throwing. ‘We was stronger and knowed how to play, and the White children didn’t’ recalled one ex-slave. In slavery, both White and Black children were building a sense of self on a foundation of racist ideas. (p. 172)

By the same token, many White teachers have and continue to nurture and unboundedly contribute to my humbled service in education.

My most vivid memories of early childhood are the times in which I would play school alone in my bedroom.4 I was the only child for ten years and lived with my grandmother until third grade. During that time, I spread blank pieces of paper across my bedroom floor representing invisible students sitting in desks. I would teach for hours upon hours taking concepts I had a hard time understanding and relating it to real-life situations I was trying to figure out. For example, fractions might have been connected to preparing Thanksgiving dinner and measuring recipes. I also used construction paper, crayons, markers, and scissors to create colorful door decorations and bulletin boards to convey my thinking to the imaginary students in my bedroom. At times I even switched between teacher, student, and principal, asking and answering my own questions. The closet was the principal’s office where I sent invisible students to be reprimanded—never praised. Like the teachers I observed as a student, I yelled when I got frustrated so much so my mom or grandmother would yell from the next room, “DJ, who are you talking to

4 While this is my first memory, my mother told me I spent many days as a toddler in my Uncle Elflist’s (1969-1988) dorm room, when he was a college student at A&T University.

133 in there?” I played music from the radio (or the cassette tape I made while listening to

K97.5 Hot 8 at 8) and danced around the room when it was time for music class, took a nap when I got tired, and picked up the blank pieces of paper on the floor at the end of the lesson as if to demonstrate that school was over. In hindsight, my childhood fascination with teaching and learning is deeply rooted in my activism for creating educational equity.

I recall early memories of being a toddler accompanying my great-grandmother

RoRo (Rossie Horton 1924-2019) to work in the kitchen at Miss Anne’s house. Miss

Anne was a White woman who lived in an affluent North Raleigh neighborhood that

RoRo and her daughter, my grandmother, worked for. I remember entering Miss. Anne’s house through the kitchen door, even in the late 1980’s. A long white-tilted counter lined the right side of the wall. A 12” TV with antennas was nestled in the corner. The Price is

Right, Days of Lives, Guiding Light, Young and the Restless, and General Hospital was in harmony with the sizzle of oxtail soup on the stove and the aroma of crackling cornbread in the oven. Suddenly a bell would ring. “Yes ma’am, Miss Anne, I’ll be right there!”

RoRo obediently replied. She then prepared a silver tray with a glass of water arranged in the upper right corner. A ladle of soup filled the white bowl and a perfectly cubed piece of cornbread (free of crumbs) placed on white saucer, just like RoRo’s mother and her mother’s mother had done before her. Except, my great-great-great grandmother Helon

Jones had whiplashes on her back and a burn on her bosom (Ruffin-Maxile, 2019)5

5 Ruffin-Maxile, S. B. (2019, January 28). OK...... Here's one more. Many of you will not understand this story. It's a slave story but it's TRUE and for some reason, I never forgot it...... But as a child, just like my Cousin RoRo heard it from [Facebook status update]. Retrieved from

134 bearing the caustic sting of being enslave. “You stay right here ‘til I come back.” RoRo told me leaving the door swinging in its frame. I obeyed and sat alone with my thoughts wondering what world waited beyond the door.

I remember my first-grade teacher reinforcing character counts: courage, integrity, righteousness, respect, and responsibility. Ironically, she, generations removed from a slave master’s mistress and RoRo and her husband, my great-Granddaddy Howard

Horton (1922-2019) of the first generation born to freed slaves instilled those traits in me as well. Yet as RoRo and Granddaddy also distrusted White folks, they also did not spare the rod whenever my White first grade teacher called home. “Dis gon hurt me more than it will hurt you. But you have to go to school to get yo’ lessons. Dem teachers won’t tell you anything wrong. They are there to help you!” RoRo would say as she whipped me.

Ms. Goodwoman, my White 6th grade (elementary/middle school) English language arts (ELA) teacher, was a second mother to me.6 She was divorced with two kids, taught full time, and worked as a cashier at Target. My

mother also had two kids. We would later lose Tauquez (born

Playbill 4.1:

April 12, 1996) murdered by gunfire from three Black boys on Figure the front steps of our Southeast Raleigh home on May 25,

2017. I remember a piece of my soul dying as a piercing cold took its place, “a special kind of ice. It kept melting, sending

https://www.facebook.com/shalon.ruffinmaxile/videos/10218219833595631/Uzpf STQ4NzAxMDkyOjEwMTAwNjY3NzM0Njc2NjM4/ 6 I am inspired and moved by Baldwin (1976) The devil finds work who writes in admiration of his White teacher, “I loved her…It is certainly partly because of her, who arrived in my terrifying life so soon, that I never really managed to hate [W]hite people…” (p. 11).

135 trickles of ice water all up and down my veins, but it never got less” (Baldwin, 1957, p.

17) when I received the phone call while living and teaching in Boston. I can still visualize two of the bullet holes in the white siding by right-side of the front door and reminisce of blood splatters on the baseboard of the white walls as family and friends consoled us during a week of exhaustive public mourning. I am the eldest by 10 years. I helped raise Tauquez and most of my younger cousins, tios, and tias. This pain of an intelligent, athletic, and talented brother stolen away to gun violence still haunts me today; and in many ways, propels my work for justice and equity for all young people of color.

Ms. Goodwoman’s home was located in majority White upper-middle-class Cary neighborhood. I spent countless weekends at Ms. Goodwoman’s house swimming in the pool and enjoying unlimited dial-up internet access chatting on AOL Instant Messenger and surfing the web while I was struggling to understand who I was becoming. In Cary, I was able to playout a fantasy where I innocently roamed around a big house: pool in the back, green grass, a garage, a dog, cat, and 2.5 children (me being the half). The only thing missing was a white picket fence! Being alone in the Whiteness of Cary seemingly provided me with a sense of independence and freedom, a different yet still adequate feeling than my all-Black Southeast Raleigh subdivision. That is, in Cary, I was able to know and playout Whiteness, which was synonymous to freedom for a young Black boy growing up in the 27610.

I spent all of my secondary schooling years trying to be White. My talent allowed me to be docile (Smith, 2014) as Kendi (2016) explained, an ability to take directions.

And, tokenized (Harris, 1993; Hess, 2015) being regarded as a “geniuses, in other words,

136 exceptions” (Kendi, 2016, p. 326) in large part because I became trained by well- intentioned White (mostly female) teachers who use the discipline and rigor of music and theatre to produce highly skilled performers. I was cast as the Baker in Into the Woods for the eighth-grade musical. Followed by “Lovin’ Al” a feature role in Working as a

Freshmen in high school. As a Sophomore and

Junior I performed “Audrey II—The Voice of the

Plant” in Little Shop of Horrors and “The

Arbiter” in Chess with the state’s professional regional theatre company. I was cast as “Othello” in Shakespeare’s Othello and “Jim” in Big River during fall and spring semesters of Senior year.

Additionally, I twice performed “Enjorles” in the Figure 4.2: Playbill district-wide performance of Les Miserablès, worked as an intern at a casting agency in New York City, and was twice an apprentice at

Ann Reinking’s Broadway Theatre Project in Tampa, Florida.

Playing characters on stage allowed me to hide behind the isolation I felt while still being seen and celebrated. However, another story was being written behind the curtain. Classmates rarely invited me to social gatherings; if so, it was after I walked in on “friends” talking about a party. The same White teachers that cast me as leading roles on stage neglected to invite me to pre-prom photos at their wealthy North Raleigh homes.

Even White teachers who praised me for demonstrating “Broadway ready” talent failed to recognize my creativity and intellect inside the classroom.

137

For example, I remember studying Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart as a

Sophomore. The end of the unit concluded with an African inspired potluck. For the assignment I asked my grandmother (Umma),7 Rosa Marie Lasiouxx (1944-2007), to share in a tradition of passing-down recipes by teaching me to bake candid-yams. I remember the yams were delightful because my mostly White classmates in Advanced

Placement English (APE) told me so! However, I did not receive full credit for the assignment because the dish was “African-American” and not “African.” In another example, I randomly picked Othello out of a hat as the literary work to present as a senior report in APE—for the same APE teacher I had two years earlier as a Sophomore. I recall using video footage from the fall production to analyze the constructions of power dynamics between Othello (the Black Captain) and Iago (his trusted White-friend)—as best as a 17-yearold could. I received a C for using the video, of which I played Othello.

For weeks Thomas (a White boy) kicked the back of my chair. I endured the annoyance until I could resist no longer.

“Ms. Dean, Thomas is kicking me!” I yelled interrupting the lesson.

“Please raise your hand and wait to be called on!” Ms. Dean, the Black first year

8th grade math teacher replied. Thomas stopped. I felt embarrassed.

The next day, Thomas closed his locker and peered into mine saying, “Are you going to tell on me today, nigger?” I immediately went to the office (not to class) to tell an administrator what happened. Without listening to me, Mr. Kelly (the White Assistant

Principal) sent me back to the basement floor to obtain a pass. Obediently, I went back to

7 My auntie LaLa told me I gave all the family nicknames (e.g. Umma, RoRo, LaLa) because I was unable to pronounce their names as a child. So Grandma became “Umma” pronounced Ah-Ma.

138 math class and (a) embarrassingly told Ms. Dean that Thomas called me a nigger, (b) obtain a hall pass to have permission to walk to the office, and (c) report back to Mr.

Kelly to recount the racist encounter. Upon hearing what happened, Mr. Kelly did not believe me and then calls Thomas to the office to verify speculation of my story. That being Whites are more likely to discount the lived experiences of people of color by taking the side of other Whites as an escape from examining, confronting, and owning racist constructions of power and privilege (Picower, 2009; DiAngelo, 2011; Sue, 2005).

In other words, Mr. Kelly believed Thomas’s denial that the incident had occurred.

“Whatcha gon’ do now nigger?” Thomas uttered in a secluded staircase after Mr.

Kelly dismissed us both to class.

“If you call me a nigger one more time, I am going to beat your mother fucking ass!” I sternly; yet, softly enunciated while pushing my nose against his. I then continued to math class thinking I handled the situation; yet, was called to the office minutes later.

“David,” said Mr. Kelly, “You are suspended—for 2 days—for threatening

Thomas.” Three months later and only several weeks into a new school year, Mercedes

(neighborhood friend) reported that Thomas called her a nigger on the bus. I was asked to corroborate (Baldwin, 1957) by writing a statement contextualizing Mercedes’s experience. Only then was Thomas expelled.

Jimmy8 (1963) wrote,

In order for me to live, I decided very early that some mistake had been made somewhere. I was not a nigger even though you called me one. But if I was a nigger in your eyes, there was something about you—there was something you

8 James Baldwin

139

needed. I had to realize when I was very young that I was none of those things I was told I was.9

In conversation with Black Feminist author Nikki Giovanni (1971 in thepostarchive,

2019)10, Baldwin further situates the power of Whiteness to fracture a child’s of color identity,

After all; for a kid, you begin to see when you are called a nigger, you look at your father because you think you father can rule the world. Every kid thinks that. And your father cannot do anything about it. Then you begin to despise your father and begin to realize, “Oh that is what a nigger is.” And it’s not your father’s fault. And it’s not your fault—It’s the fault of the people who hold the power because they have deliberately trained your father to be a slave. And they deliberately calculated that if he is a slave, YOU gone be a slave…And it will go on forever and slavery will last a thousand years which the slaveholder said and believed. And now the bill is in. And they want me and you to have sympathy and understanding. I understand it all too well. And I have all the sympathy in the world for that spiritual disaster. But, I have no pity. The billing is in. We paid it. Now it’s your turn.

I knew I was not a nigger because my grandmother and great-grandmother told me so,

“Deejay, remember: sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never hurt you.” But, being called a nigger did hurt and everything in school was telling me I was a nigger.

Being excluded by friends and teachers at school caused me to throw-up my food as soon as I got home from rehearsals. I started taking diet pills to lose weight and began to misbehave in order to get attention and to be like the popular White kids who were slim, gregarious, and wealthy. To complicate the matter, I could not share these

9 Baldwin, J. (1963). A talk to teachers. In James Baldwin collected essays (pp.678-686) Boston, MA: Beacon Press. 10 thepostarchive, thepostarchive. (2019, January 16). James Baldwin & Nikki Giovanni, a conversation (1971) [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZmBy7C9gHQ

140 experience with my father because I was not yet seeing him on a regular bases and the vulnerability for a relationship would not be rebuilt until almost 20 years later. Moreover, my experiences growing up in a household full of women may have taught me to soften my reaction and be silent in order to spare the feelings of the adults around me by preserving traditional hierarchies (Hill, 2016; O’Quinn, 2001)11, “Stay out of grown folks business. Don’t talk unless spoken to.” is a refrain I know all too well.

What was it about being Black that opened the kitchen and stage door; but, a fourth wall smacked me in the face with a position of social inferiority? In school, my lyrical voice coupled with my ability to embody a character transported me to upper echelons of the performing arts society. Yet, my African-American cultural traditions and intellect was second-class to Eurocentric (White and/or anti-of color) ingenuity and ways of knowing (epistemologies) expected by some administrators and teachers. What was it about White folks like Thomas, a child; Mr. Kelly, an administrator; my ELA teacher; and, Miss Anne, an employer that enabled me to bid time while racist shit happened?

What was so attractive and repulsive about a Black-Queer boy living, serving, and playing in a White world that caused people to line up for my autograph one day and shun me the next? Was it obedience to obscure oppression? Or, did my talent taint the tyranny of good teachers training students, training slaves? Why did Black folks like my teacher, Miss Dean, perpetuate the same oppression Whites dealt? Will I always feel lonely or does my loneliness breathe creativity where “music was my refuge” (Angelou,

11 O’Quinn, E. J. (2001) “Between voice and voicelessness: Transacting silence in Laurie Halse Anderson’s speak. The Alan Review, 29(1), 54-58. doi: 10.20161/alan.v29i1.a.12 Hill, M. L. (2016). Nobody: Casualties of America’s war on the vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and beyond. New York, NY: Atria Books.

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1976, p.4)12 and the spaces between the notes my nest of comfort, reflection, play, and healing.

ii. student studying music

My love affair with music began at Poplar Spring United Church of Christ in

Garner, North Carolina. Gospel music was always around me. I sang in the Gospel choir on the first Sunday, the Young Adult choir on the second Sunday, the Youth choir on the third Sunday, and the Mass or Combined choir on the fourth Sunday. Seems unusual for a kid to sing with adults. But, my ancestors helped build the church and a privilege came with that. Even on Monday evenings, Umma and I rode to choir practice in Mister

Freddie Lee’s red pick-up truck. I would climb in first to sit in the middle and Umma on the passenger side. Mister Freddie Lee would stop at the store (on the other side of the railroad tracks just before we crossed into

Garner) so we could pick up a bag of pork skins and a Pepsi on our 30-minute ride to

Poplar for choir practice. Aretha Franklin, The

Supremes, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye and the like filled our ears and hearts. Ears Figure 4.3: 1990’s Poplar Springs Gospel Choir Anniversary

12 Angelou, M. (1976). Singin’ and swingin and getting’ merry like Christmas. New York, NY: Random House Publishing.

142 because we heard it. Hearts because we felt it. If only at first by imitation, I felt the music too because I was a part of it.

“Wiiiiiillll, will my Jesus be waiting?”

“Will my Jesus be waiting, when that awful day comes.” Freddie Lee and I responded right after Umma sang the call.

“Will my Jesus be waiting?”

“Will my Jesus be waiting, just to sa-ay we-ell done!”13 we responded as the radio went off and the mood changed as got closer to church.

Granny always practiced before any singing engagement, even before choir practice at church. Practice was a lesson she taught me: always be prepared so that you are able to work with others and not be anybody’s dead weight. Just as important, choir practice was about being immersed and understanding the feeling and power of music and text in order to best communicate it to a congregation in six days. The soloist could only best help facilitate the spirit if she already knew the words to the songs and was thoroughly prepared herself for practice. Meaning Monday evening choir rehearsals were not concerned with quarter notes and eighth notes. We did not drill sight-reading rhythms and melodies. We did not bring pencils to rehearsal to make marks on our sheet music.

There was no sheet music. There were only song lyrics on a page and our individual and collective lived experiences as a vessel of praise and worship. In choir practices (not chorus rehearsals) at Poplar Springs, we began with a praise and worship song to open a space for the spirit to dwell. We learned songs through rote & call and response. We

13 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGR3yATrsTs

143 focused on using our voices as vessels of testimony—words addressed to the Lord for all the saints to hear and rejoice in praise over trials and tribulations (Hinson, 2005).14

I loved witnessing how any soloist—specifically my Granny—could move people to jump as if there was fire shut up in their bones. Next, the pastor would hoot and holler rallying some in the congregation to scream “Hallelujah!,” others to dance, and many to cry. I was a part of that too; for, people would tear up when I sang a solo. Singing also moved me to shout once while performing with the Enloe High School’s Gospel Choir at a choir festival in the early 2000s.

The Enloe High School Gospel Choir was well known within the Raleigh church community and I knew I wanted to join on the first day of school. At rehearsal, I identified with the Black students who shared a love of Gospel singing and found others whom experienced the transcendent power of song that I observed in my church community. In Gospel choir practice at school, I felt a sense of belonging even though I hardly saw the other students among the of over 1,200 students on campus. The very first high school Gospel choir practice started with a familiar song “He has Done Marvelous

Things, Praise the Lord!” that I too sang at Poplar and with the Martin Luther King, Jr.

All Children’s Choir. The song engendered a praise and worship like I had never seen before among high school students. The energy in the room was palpable. I witnessed mirror images of Black and Brown young people singing and leaning into every note resounding as loud as the rolling sea. The process was a collaboration between the adult choir director, student pianist and drummer, teacher sponsor, and the Gospel choir

14 Hinson, G. (2000). Fire in my bones. Transcendence and the holy spirit in African American gospel. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

144 student president. In essence the high school Gospel choir provided an analogous feeling of familiarity to the experiences at church which aided in a smooth and inviting transition from middle school to high school. Moreover, I found the upfront emotionality and electrifying context of community comforting in the classroom. Thus, my new feelings of safety and security supported me in taking a risk to audition for the high school musical,

Working.

The audition for the high school musical ran like all other auditions I had previously experienced. Including being one of the only people of color auditioning. For

Working, I prepared to sing “All I Really Need is the Girl” from Gypsy with my 16 bars marked as my community theatre and middle school voice teachers taught me to do for musical theatre auditions. I specifically chose the song because the tempo is faster and I felt the text was more appropriate for the theme of the musical. This is a lesson from my music theatre training—know the show, the role, and the people you are auditioning for.

Then, choose your song and monologue accordingly. In other words, always be prepared by intentionally researching and rehearsing before any gig. Or, know who and what you are dealing with.

After hearing me sing the White high school choral director, Mr. Abrams, asked me to audition for a coveted spot in the elite Chamber Chorus. I remember Mr. Abrams asking me about my background and commented on the power of my voice, “I believe your tenor voice would be an asset to the chorus. Come to the audition prepared with a song to sing, classical preferred, and expect to sight-read rhythms and a melody.” I was horrified. Nervous energy affects most of my auditions. This time, I was horrified because I did not know that rhythmic (beat patterns) and melodic (vocal/instrumental

145 tonal patterns) could be separated and verbally deconstructed like the letters of the words creating phrases constructing this very sentence to make sense. But my lack of knowledge was not going to stop me. All I had to do was know that anything is possible.

And so, the following Sunday when the Reverend said, “Take out your hymnals and turn to page 291.” I did and tried my best to read the notes on the page.

“Here is a quarter note—quarter note—eighth note—quarter note—rhythm,

David. Can you say this pattern for me?” Mr. Abrams said at the audition.

“Uhhh...”

“It is in 4/4, meaning the quarter note gets the beat.” I remembered the hymn from church had a 4/4 in the upper left-hand corner of the music too.

“Oh. Ok.” I respond. “What do you mean by say the rhythm? I don’t see any words.”

“Choose any syllable you’d like. Most people go with Da or Doo.” modeled Mr.

Abrams.

“Got it.” I start with hesitation, “Daaaaaa…daaaaaa…” I stop.

“David, what is half of a quarter note?” Mr. Abrams irritably says tapping his pencil on the music stand.

“What?” All of sudden, English became a foreign language for I could not understand what Mr. Abrams was explaining.

“It is an eighth note. The two eighth notes connected by the bar on the third beat is going to equal one quarter note. So, the eighth note is twice as fast yet still equal in beat to the quarter. Can you read the rhythm now, David?”

Again, no response for I am even more confused and my confidence dwindling.

146

“Its. Da—Da—da-da—Da.” demonstrated Mr. Abrams. “Check the list on

Monday to see if you made any of choruses.”

Hearing those words further placed terror and intimidation at the forefront of the

Chamber Chorus experiences. Everything that was familiar was now unfamiliar. Here, the Chamber Chorus was held in a small closet size room (practice room) where I stood directly beside Mr. Abrams and the piano. In my past experiences, musical theatre auditions were usually held in large dance or rehearsal studios where a table of at least 4 people sat across from the person auditioning. No time to think too much, though, because music theory was only the first part of the audition. The second phase required me to sing a song (classically preferred).

To me, Classical music was slow, lyrical, and operatic; so, I sang the most lyrical song I knew,

“If You believe within your heart, you’ll know,

That no one can change the path that you must go.

Believe what you feel and know you’re right because,

The time will come around, when you say it’s yours!”15

Yet; as I sang, I felt less-than the White students and specifically the other freshmen singing songs in Italian and German as if they had been learning the language since they were 4. I was an anomaly because my upbringing in Gospel and Musical Theatre required me to learn and present music in a different manner than the White students I observed clapping rhythmic patterns and singing in foreign languages. In one fell swoop the

15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHzx2P4x63c

147

Chamber Chorus audition brought into consciousness the innate difference between learning music in the Western European Classical tradition of studying music theory verses Southern Gospel tradition of learning songs through call-response, rote, and being immersed in the feeling of music. Moreover, the audition highlighted the advantage afforded to my White counterparts simply because White European culture and traditions were expected as the standard of superiority. This tension between my Blackness and the

Whiteness of the other students immediately made me feel less like the confident Gospel- singing musician and burgeoning musical theatre triple threat I knew I was.

Contradicting feelings of inadequacy were feelings of admiration and awe. I began to wonder if studying Classical music provided by the Chamber Chorus would make me a serious musician. Furthermore, could the secret to understanding the transcendent power of music rest in the ability to read and understand the constructions and deconstructions of rhythm and melody. All of this questioning was being pushed between demands of afterschool rehearsals for the musical that waned me from my beloved Black community built with the high school Gospel choir. And, as I spent more time away from the spirit of the Gospel community, a new conflict and affair with sacred music was brewing.

The Enloe High Chamber Chorus was an elite group that won superior ratings under the leadership of Mr. Abrams. Therefore, Mrs. Hall, the new White female choral teacher inherited a legacy she was hired to sustain following Mr. Abrams’s retirement.

The first test of her teaching would come during the NC State high school choral festival.

Of which, Mrs. Hall did more than prepare us to sing “If Ye Love Me Keep My

Commandments” by Thomas Tallis and Moses Hogan’s “My Soul’s Been Anchored in

148 the Lord.” Mrs. Hall taught us to be a family, “The chorus that plays together and eats togethers sings well together!” she always recited. This insistence on family and a semi- rote process of learning music helped prepare me to sing the repertoire because music classes consisted of months of repetition-based learning to ensure the performance of each song was consistent with performance practices during the era in which the piece was written. Choral singing was about blending in and sounding as one harmonious voice. However, singing was not the only practice the chorus would be judged by. The chorus would also have to sight-read rhythms and a song.

Fear struck again during the sight-reading session at the state choral competition.

I vividly remember slouching down in the burgundy chairs of the local college’s auditorium and trying my best to blend in with the other identical Black and White tuxes.

I could feel my heart racing and palms becoming sweaty as the chorus was told to opened their sight-reading test books to page 2 and began to read the black dots on the page. I feared I would clap during a rest and the chorus would lose its long-held superior rating. I thought the all-White adjudicators were waiting for me to make a mistake and would write: “For Black people to be good at dancing and drumming, they sure can’t read these rhythms correctly!” I feared my fellow mostly White chorus members would secretly gossip and blame me for a lowered sight-reading score. Subconsciously and often times consciously I felt inadequate, out of place, and uniquely aware of my Blackness while swimming in a sea of high school Whiteness that followed into higher education.

In college, I often sat in classes feeling isolated and marginalized as an undergraduate student in the Midwest at Millikin University and graduate student in New

England at Longy School of Music and Boston University (BU). In many instances, I was

149 berated for being behind the learning curve of White classmates. I struggled through music theory, foreign language diction, and European art song performance classes. In music theory classes the expectation was that I could quickly identify pitches, read and notate rhythms, hear chord progressions, and harmonically analyze music. I would receive my tests and see red ink all over my paper and looked around to see my predominately White colleagues with less ink and higher grades on their tests.

One cold Thursday in October, I was sitting in my remedial music theory review class. I was required to take the review class because I did not pass the School of Music’s music theory entrance exam. On this day the professor returned our first tests and proceeded to review the answers. The first exam covered music of Bach in which students had to complete a harmonic realization of a Bach chorale. For harmonic realizations, students are given a soprano melody written on the top line of the music staff. Then using the rules of Western music harmony, additional lines of music for the alto, tenor, and bass parts are created by writing notes in four-part harmony. This process of composing music is entirely done in one’s head and transcribed on music staff paper so the final product looks like a hymnal. Meaning, there is an expectation of audiation: hearing and identifying relationships between individual and collective pitches without sound being played or sung.

In an attempt to demonstrate “an incorrect harmonic realization of a Bach chorale,” the BU professor writes on the board the identical chord progression I wrote on my exam. He returns to the piano and plays the chord progression. Then states, “This sounds like bad Gospel music. Bach, would never write that!” I felt awful as the class laughed. I laughed too. I was one of two Black people in the class. I felt everyone had to

150 be thinking it was one of us. Most likely me because the other Black guy played the cello and was in orchestra with many of our White, but mostly Asian classmates. Even singing–the area I thought was my greatest strength—became a weakness in art song repertoire classes. I felt lonely as I listened to my White classmates perform songs in

Italian, German, and French that they had just received the previous week. Meanwhile, I could barely hold the melody with the accompaniment. Some professors became frustrated and irritated when I struggled to sing and mixed up the foreign language diction idiosyncrasies. For example, while I was rehearsing The Count in Mozart’s Le

Nozze di Figaro, one professor threw his pencil at me when my Southern accent creeped into Italian bel canto singing.

“It’s Soo-zah-nah. Not Su-zanne-nuh! How many times do I have to tell you this!” said the director as his pencil used as a conducting baton flies across the room and hits my ankle. In a split-second contemplation I decide to continue acting as The Count instead of reacting as Deejay wanting to throw the pencil back at him. But I was too distracted with the flashback of my fifth-grade orchestra teacher, Mr. Williams, clipping my fingernails in front of the entire class, “I told you to cut your nails, you cannot play the violin if your nails are long!” I never played another instrument again.

Alex, the White tenor and the only other male of the six vocal majors during my master’s degree at Longy School of Music also struggled with phonetically pronouncing the idiosyncrasies of different languages. He openly discussed his dyslexia and the supports given to him throughout his schooling. Yet, while Alex sang Schumann’s

Dichterliebe and stumbled over German pronunciations of words, the professor bribed him with money, “I will give you this dollar if you pronounce gegangen correctly” the

151 graduate professor told Alex in front of the class. Me and the other students in the cohort

(all White women) looked at each other in dismay at Alex’s preferential treatment. While

I, a Black-Queer boy and another Black female were made to repeat mistakes until correction.

Why did the Black elementary orchestra teacher publicly humiliate me in front of my peers during music class just like the White music professor writing incorrect answer to test questions on the board? How was I supposed to remember to clip my finger nails as a fifth-grader helping care for a new born baby brother outside of school? Just like those days as a child, the only way I knew how to survive was to put my head down and continue to bear the brunt of oppression. And, commit myself to working harder and harder to be better than anyone else. So I did and earned leading roles in every opera:

Ottone in L’incoronazione di Poppea, The Captain in HMS Pinafore, and The Count in

Figaro. In addition, I won the concerto aria competition and performed solo on a live broadcast with the Millikin Decatur Symphony Orchestra during my senior year of undergraduate studies. Mark, my White undergraduate voice professor saw, shared, and witnessed my frustration and success of encountering Western European Classical music.

Mark was also moved by my tenacity to be successful no matter the odds stacked against me—making Mark a father figure, a mentor. In hindsight, I am certain that I would not have completed undergraduate or begin my first master’s degree without his support.

In undergraduate school, Mark allowed me to sing one musical theatre song a term such as “Make Them Hear You” from Ragtime,

“Go out an tell our story, let it echo far and wide

Make them hear you. Make them hear you.

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How justice was our battle, and how just was denied.

Make them hear you. Make them hear you.

And say to those who blame us for the way we chose to fight,

That sometimes there are battles that are more than black or white.

And, I could not put down my sword when justice was my right.

Make them hear you. Make them hear you.”16

Mark also exposed me to classically written spirituals such as Come Sunday by Duke

Ellington. Looking back, I believe my success was aided by Mark’s approach of merging music styles familiar to me with his need to meet institutional degree requirements.

Additionally, Mark knew my success as an operatic tenor did not end with his instruction.

He understood my struggles with music theory and foreign language diction would need to drastically improve if I were to succeed in becoming a professional opera singer in graduate school and beyond. Therefore, Mark researched and recommended a small graduate program (Longy School of Music) and a voice teacher Robert Honeysucker

(1943-2017), a Black male opera singer from Mississippi, in hopes the teacher and institution that would care for the operatic training of my voice and be sensitive to my path of studying music and voice performance. Moreover, to further ensure success,

Mark suggested I find a neuropsychologist in Boston in order to determine if I have a learning disability effecting my music cognition. Of which, Mark and his wife paid

$2000 to cover the evaluation. I remember laying across the bed in my Boston apartment listening to Mark on the phone, “This is a lot of money for us. Pay us back when you are famous, or not. It does not matter to me. We love you and just believe in your talent and

16 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Whg_OS7P-c

153 success.” With preparation and support, I fully intended for studies at Longy School of

Music to be a success; and, they were. Little did I know that diagnosis of an auditory and visual perception disorder concluded in the neuropsychological exam would bring more trials, tribulations, and triumphs while studying music at a French conservatory— established to conserve, preserve, maintain, and sustain Western European Classical musical traditions.

iii. music teacher teaching

On April 26, 2016 while attending a national arts advocacy roundtable, Michael

Butera, former CEO of the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) exposed the power of White supremacy in U.S. music education. The former CEO rejected the omnipresence of Black and Latinx musical brilliance when he declared bodies of color lacking “keyboard [piano] skills needed for this field” (Cooper, 2017, para. 1)17 and cognitively incapable of learning music theory (McCord, 2016; Rosen, 2016).18

17 Cooper, M. (2016, May 12). Music education group’s leader departs after remarks on diversity. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/arts/music/music-education-groups-leader- departs-after-remarks-on-diversity.html?_r=0 18 McCord, K. (2016). Why we must have inclusion, diversity, and equity in the arts: A response to the National Association for Music Education. Alternate Roots. Retrieved from https://alternateroots.org/why-we-must-have-inclusion-diversity- and-equity-in-the-arts-a-response-to-the-national-association-for-music- education/ Rosen, J. (2016). League president and CEO comments on recent controversy surrounding diversity meeting . League of American Orchestras. Retrieved from http://americanorchestras.org/news-publications/public-statements/league- president-comments-on-diversity-discussion.html

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Continuing to degrade and diminish Blacks and Latinx peoples, Butera attributed our perceived deficiencies to underfunded public schools, which are staffed by an 86% White teaching force (Elpus, 2015).19

Later, denying his comments took place in a Facebook post, Butera admitted “the field of music educators, much like the general population of educators is skewed toward

White individuals” (Cooper, 2016, para. 7); but, Butera as executive leader “could not take action to diversify” (Cooper, 2016, para. 8) the elected executive leadership board.

Meaning, Whiteness is the way it is and there is no perceived need for change. The New

York Times journalist mentions that NAfME paid Butera “more than $250,000 in base compensations and benefits” (Cooper, 2016, para. 9) as executive leader. Her reporting is backed by committee members who voted Butera as CEO for his “strong background in negotiation and problem solving” (committee member in NAfME, 2010)20 and his

“epitome of thinking outside of the box—exploring refreshing strategies” (committee member in NAfME, 2010).21 Yet, regarding White power and privilege, the complexity of the issue has only seemed to produce “ongoing and rich discussions…but have not yet been able to actualize a solution” (Cooper, 2016, para. 7). In this case, talk is not cheap and action through problem-solving White Supremacy is a not up for negotiation.

Professional music education organizations (MayDay Group and NAfME’s

Society for Music Teacher Education) wrote (re-)commitment statements highlighting

19 Elpus, K. (2015). Music teacher licensure candidates in the United States: A demographic profile and analysis of licensure examination scores. Journal of Research in Music Education, 36(3), 1-22. doi:10.1177/0022429415602470 20 NAfME. (2010). Press release: MENC announces new executive director. Retrieved from https://nafme.org/press-release-menc-announces-new-executive-director/ 21 ibid.

155 adherence to diversity and reaffirmed music educations values of inclusion. However, little to no actionable changes were made other than commitments to more symposiums and research on race. Meanwhile, the same year an entire music teacher education conference was relocated to another state when many professors (spearheaded by a Gay

White male) took issue with the conference being held in North Carolina—a state engulfed in national outrage over the passage of anti-LGBTQ bills. Where was this type of unilateral action when NAfME’s CEO made bigoted and racists remarks? That is, where some Whites are willing to be silent and resists action on issues of racism, homophobia can become a shared link to oppression and thereby supersedes concerns of

Blackness.

During this debacle, the leadership team of the only national, local, and state music education advocacy organization never addressed racism, bigotry, and the organizations responsibility in systematically excluding people of color in teaching and leadership positions (Robinson & Hendricks, 2018).22 Instead the association hired a crisis management firm and posted an ambiguous statement on diversity and inclusion at the bottom of their webpage (M. Robinson, 2016).23 Next, the organization appointed another White male (Michael Blakeslee) —who taught music in Latin America—to

22 Robinson, D., & Hendricks, K. S. (2018). Black keys on a White piano: A Negro narrative of double-consciousness in American music education. In Talbot, B. (Ed.), Marginalized Voices in Music Education. New York, NY: Routledge. 23 Robinson, M. (2016, May 10). Some thoughts on the Michael Butera situation and the future of NAfME. Retrieved from http://spartanideas.msu.edu/2016/05/10/some- thoughts-on-the-michael-butera-situation-and-the-future-of-nafme/

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replace Butera (NAfME, 2016).24 The current NAfME President is a White woman whose “Irish family moved to a large Spanish community in Tampa, Florida, where her elementary school included a number of students who spoke Spanish” (NAfME, 2018, para. 2).25 Why highlight the gentrification of a White person moving to a Spanish community when there are Spanish and Latinx teachers and community leaders who have been working on behalf of their own communities’ interests? Here exemplifies a connection between the interests of the calcified White NAfME executive leadership boards, the overrepresentation of Whites teachers and professors, and advocacy for carrying out compulsory music teaching and learning in the United States.

The conflux of emotions I felt when I was notified of Butera’s comments ignited a fire of racism propelling me to burn my NAfME membership card and write an Open letter to minority music teachers exclaiming,

I do not know Mr. Butera and cannot comment on his character or intentions; however, as a Black man, I cannot separate his bigoted comments from American history—recent and old—or from statistical data, and especially not from my personal lived experiences. (para. 8)26

Therefore, my letter attempted to expose the problem with music curriculum in the schools failing teachers and students of color. Or, to use Baldwin’s (1963)27 words,

24 NAfME. (2016). National Association for music education announces new executive director. Retrieved from https://nafme.org/national-association-for-music- education-announces-new-executive-director-and-ceo/ 25 NAfME (2018). The new NAfME president measures up! Retrieved from https://nafme.org/the-new-nafme-president-measures-up/ 26 Robinson, D. (2016b, August 10). An open letter to minority music teachers. [Editorial]. Mayday Group. Retrieved from http://www.maydaygroup.org/2016/08/an-open-letter-to-minority-music- teachers/#.V7d__pMrJE5 27 A Talk to Teachers.

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if you are compelled to lie about one aspect of anybody’s history, you must lie about it all. If you have to lie about my role [in music], if you have to pretend that I [achieved success] because [of]…you, then you have done something to yourself. You are mad! (p. 683)

The purpose of the letter was twofold. One, expose “[W]hite children—some of them near forty—who have never grown up, and who will never grow up, because they have no sense of their identity” (Baldwin, 1963, p. 683).28 Two, inspire people of color to use their lived experiences as sources of knowledge to transform and construct music classrooms that values students regardless of ethnicities, sexual orientations, and genders.

However; I now believe, in order to build a field where students freely realize their own artistic and intellectual abilities, students’ identities must be named, (enw)rapped, and dropped to a beat of equity and justice.

I was in debt and facing financial hardship undertaken as a result of the under preparation of schooling that helped pay Butera’s and the executive board salaries when I became a member. At the time I composed the open letter, I had completed two degrees in music yet was unable to obtain a full-time job. I worked as a part-time teaching artist for 5 organizations (Boston City Singers, Epiphany Middle School, Longy School of

Music, Metropolitan Opera Guild, and Tutors For All) making no more than $13,000 a year with over $200,000 in debt. During this time I studied on my own to obtain a

Massachusetts State Teaching License (MTEL) and received my first full-time job on

August 10, 2012, my 26th birthday. That is, I received my first full-time teaching job without an education degree. Moreover, the Executive Director of the Arts for Boston

Public Schools (BPS) witnessed my work with a BPS high school while I was working as

28 ibid.

158 a teaching artist with Metropolitan Opera Guild in 2011 and personally recommended me for hire29 where I served in BPS as a tenured teacher.

After (a) several years of teaching and supervising student teachers from Boston

University and Berklee college of Music, (b) a consistent proficient rating on the state’s teaching evaluation leading to tenure promotion in year three, and (c) one master’s degree, I applied for doctoral studies in music education at Boston University. I applied to the doctoral program on the recommendation of the then director of music teacher education. However, I was denied admittance because, “I did not have enough experience.” Instead BU offered me a second master’s degree in music education with the option to reapply for the doctoral program upon successful completion of the master’s degree. I agreed and received no scholarship to complete my studies. Adding fuel to fire, my 6-month loan deferment grace period had ended and I used all of my deferment options—including financial hardship. It was at this very moment when the United States

Federal government put a lien on my Boston Public Schools check in order to collect on my federal loan repayments during my first year of full-time teaching.

Further, I was an in-service elementary music teacher in Boston engaged in publicly grappling with implications of teaching 17th, 18th, and 19th century Western

European culture as superior—while Black and Brown bodies lie red in the streets. To complicate the matter, I also struggled to make sense of a Brown University research study (commissioned by BPS) aimed at examining the achievement, opportunity, and equity gap of Blacks and Latinx students (specifically males) in the district. The study concluded, across all indicators, Black and Latinx students who make up almost four-

29 See editorial in artifacts

159 fifths of all males in BPS do not have the same access to educational opportunities as their White and Asian counterparts (Miranda et al., 2014).30 The conclusion reached by the investigators angered and confounded me. I wondered, how was it possible for a public-school district to succeed in educating the White and Asian minority; and, fail to provide access to quality education to the majority Black and Brown students, who were a mirror image of me. And, what about the female students of color?

I was also angry at hatred and injustice going on around the world. Boston was healing from the Boston Marathon bombings in April 201331 when the summer of 2014 gave birth to the #BlackLivesMatter movement responding to police officers repeatedly murdering unarmed Black children, women, and men. The scenes of Black folx laying bloody and blue on the concrete by the murdering hands of police officers frightened me.

My eyes welled up with tears and my heart sank while watching MSNBC’s airing of the video of a White police officer holding a gun over Philando Castile while he lay dying.

His girlfriend is screaming and her 4-year-old daughter in an angelic voice says, “It’s ok,

I am here with you.” I thought about the riots in Baltimore and Ferguson. I wept over the brazen murder of nine innocent Black men and women praying at a Bible study in

Charleston, South Carolina. I found it hard to understand how White-male Dillon Ruth could enter the sacred sanctuary and shoot people in prayer; and, be apprehended with

30 Miranda, H., Mokhta, C. Tung, R., Ward, R., French, D., McAlister, S., & Marshall, A. (2014). Opportunity and equity: Enrollment and outcomes of Blacks and Latino males in the Boston Public Schools (Center for Collaborative Education, Anneberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University). Retrieved from http://www.bostonpublicschools.org/cms/lib07/MA01906464/Centricity/Domain/ 24/Executive%20Summary_final_pages.pdf 31 Three people were killed when two bombs exploded near the finish line of the 2016 marathon. Of the three victims was 8-year old Martin Richard.

160 courtesy, respect, and professionalism. While, a Black kid walking with skittles or playing with a toy gun in a park are penetrated with bullets.

I screamed for Alton Sterling, Trayvon Martin and Michael Gray, Eric Gardner,

Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Kalief Browder, and a host of others in the Transgender community killed by the thin razor of love and hate. I also agonized over the eight cops ambushed and murdered in Dallas and Baton Rouge. Then, I remembered that I had seen a similar scene before. The year was 1963 and the picture was in black and white. Black children were protesting unequal treatment in schools when Bull Connor unleashed his

White police officers to whip students’ backs with the powerful sting of water pressure out of a fire hose and canines teeth ripping kids’ flesh. Altogether the violence outside of the classroom and the violence I was perpetuating inside the music room broke my heart and I collapsed on my living room floor. I cried because somewhere deep inside, I knew that I too sustained a form of White supremacy by bolstering the music of dead White men as superior. I did this simply because education steeped me in Western European classical music traditions and so I imposed them on my students. Plus, I remembered how training bleached me of my Black Gospel roots—which is what inspired me to study music in the first place.

The heat of the racists fire burning inside me needed a channel for my anger and frustration to escape. One day, I wore my school hoodie with a sticker I hand wrote the words “Am I Next?” on an address label. Later, I wore a Providence Youth Student

Movement (PrYSM) T-shirt printed “Is my skin color a crime?” Still, wearing my frustration was not enough because there was no change in my teaching. Then, one afternoon before music class, Ali an Arab fifth grader says, “Mr. Robinson, I saw your t-

161 shirt the other day and I wondered if you had seen Selma (2014) yet?” Another student chimed in and the music classroom became a discussion about Selma and the current racial injustices happening in our community. I asked myself, “Could using music to teach history and social justice meet my needs and the interests of students at this particular point in time?” But how? Two degrees of music and music education courses provided a strong Eurocentric historical and theoretical foundation for music teaching and learning. But, little tangible resources for creating my own curriculum. Before long, I re-membered Longy and the final research paper I wrote after my neuropsychological evaluation. There was my answer: I needed to re-search to unlearn what I knew by excavating what I’ve always known but forgot, in order to create something more just than the reality I was currently living. Meaning apply the pressures of the moment to create something new that is situated in a historical collective pursuit for justice and equity in teaching and learning.

Boston, MA

“Where did you learn to teach?” la profesora asked the advanced doctoral seminar. “My 2nd/3rd grade Emotionally Impaired class taught me how to teach,” I replied referencing my tenure as a PreK-5 grade general music teacher at Franklin Elementary in

Boston Public Schools.32 Emotionally Impaired (EI) was the institutional label branded cohorts of students whom individually experienced extreme trauma as infants and

32 I have taught across grades levels and years in charter, public, and private schools. Here, I focus on Ms. Allen’s (pseudonym) 2nd/3rd grade emotionally impaired (EI) special education class during my tenure at Franklin Elementary (pseudonym)—as most impacting my process of learning to teach while teaching with a broken heart in search of liberation.

162 toddlers: neonatal abstinence syndrome, a witness and/or victim of physical and sexual abuse, drug abuse, violence, incarcerated parents, and single-guardian home usually with several siblings. EI kids at Franklin spent most of their day in a substantially separate classroom adjoining a cinder-blocked containment space for restraining a child in crisis.

Franklin Elementary also served majority communities of color while being located in a predominately upper-middle class White and Asian neighborhood adjacent to a private religious affiliated college with a strong scholarly presence in teacher education.

The majority of the students were bused 13 miles from a predominately Latinx immigrant community (where I also lived) to attend the school. All students received free breakfast and lunch. Fifty-nine percent of students were classified as economically disadvantaged,

22% with a disability, and 49% English-as-a-new-language learners (ELLs). The school’s

Composite Performance Index (CPI)33 consistently scored below the district and state level; meanwhile, out-of- school suspension rates were four percentage points above.

Total enrollment across the elementary and middle school averaged 680 students. My teaching load as an elementary general music teacher hovered around 500 students a week, across five academic strands (Advanced Work, ELLs, EI, General Education, and

Students with Learning Disabilities (SWLD), seven grade levels (pre-kindergarten, kindergarten through fifth grade—not including music support of the middle school spring musical), and five teaching periods a day (three in the morning, roughly a 20 minute lunch, and two classes in the afternoon) with varying amounts of students in each

33 A number 1-100 that represent the extent to which all students meet proficiency in a given subject on the state exams. One hundred is assigned when all students demonstrate proficiency.

163 class: advanced work, ELL, and general education classes having upwards 26-30 students, while 3-8 students in EI and SWLD classes. All students attended music class once a week.

At Franklin, I was frustrated that I was failing at teaching Ms. Allen’s students, the 2nd /3rd grade EI class, as well as the 4th/5th grade SWLD class.34 This feeling intensified after DeAndre, a third grader entered the music classroom late and slams the door. I was already tight because I was teaching Recorders. And, the dentist the district contracts was cleaning students’ teeth on the other side of the bookshelf separating the two entrances into the music classroom.

“Is that how you come into a classroom while WE are already learning?” I enunciated.

“Shut the fuck up you fucking faggot!” DeAndre yelled.

In that second, I froze in embarrassment and humiliation. Then, DeAndre ran back out the classroom door he entered and opens the other door where the dentist was cleaning a child’s teeth.

34 For one, the classes were scheduled after lunch/recess or at the end of the day, where all of our patience was running thin. Many times fights would happen as students lined up to come inside after recess as if they were fighting to stay outside. Some of the EI and SWLD students would run off triggering a state of emergency where administrators and school police officer are notified and a search and recovery mission is implemented. More often than not the found child would be restrained by the adult folding the child’s arms so hands are near armpits. The adult places one foot and leg slightly between the child’s legs while using their upper body to pull the child’s arms backward. I was trained and implemented this form of corporal punishment and questioned its method when students would automatically assume the hold position.

164

“HEY! What’s your problem?” the dentist stops and yells forcing DeAndre into the halls triggering a student search and seizure effort resulting in a restraint. It was not until I debriefed the incident with Ms. Allen that I learned DeAndre had been in the crisis room all morning because of a situation that occurred on the bus. Music was the class he wanted most to attend because he loved learning to play the recorder. I felt awful and knew I needed to make a change.

Tensions in the world were made bare by the #BlackLivesMatter movement outside the classroom. And conflict inside the classroom was on display with me perpetuating oppression made clear through my language. Here, I singled out,

Figure 4.4: Robinson Music Classroom disrespected, and fractured DeAndre’s place in our class community. Just as my elementary, secondary, and higher education teachers did to me. This circular

165 commonality of oppression captivated me and lead me to further research race and racism in schools and schooling as my curriculum project and master’s thesis while attending graduate school at Boston University.

To restructure my curriculum, I read music education literature which encouraged me to place images of musicians of color around the classroom. I did. I sourced multicultural repertoire from the Silver Burdett music curriculum anthology; yet, the canon seemed to white-wash cultural differences. I placed books showing images of people of color on the bookshelf; but, I never had time to read books to students during music class with the pace of the Burdett curriculum and class management struggles. At home, I read Woodson’s (1933) The Miseducation of the Negro, Ladson-Billings (2009)

The Dreamkeepers, and Alexander’s (2012) The New Jim Crow. I learned of Thomas D.

Rice, a White comedian, who in 1828, created the fictional character Jim Crow after watching a disabled slave dance at his wedding. Abrahams (1992) writes how Rice covered his face with burnt cork or black shoe polish to appear black as tar, over exaggerating his nose, eyes, and mouth, and “danced gestures dictating by the groom’s physical disabilities” (p. 140).35 These appropriated performances of a slaves most intimate moments became the beginning of minstrel shows.

At first, minstrel shows were performed by Whites in blackface and became one the most popular forms of entertainment in the United States. As popularity grew, Blacks increasingly performed in black face reinforcing stereotypes of Blacks as lacking intellectual abilities and the promulgation of Black artists and entertainment as

35Abrahams, R. D. (1992). Singing the master: The emergence of African American culture in the plantation south. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.

166 dangerous, exotic, overtly sexual and violent. The curation of Blacks and Black music as deviant during the 1890s coincided with White politicians legislating sets of codes (Black

Codes) and laws deliberately designed to keep the descendants of newly freed enslaves in a state of perpetual inferiority. White politicians publicized the campaign under the name

Jim Crow. Jim Crow policies represented and enforced over the next 70 years created,

a perverse legal solution to fulfill an equally perverse desire to contain the degree of interracial engagement, while the rise in heinous crimes of lynching stood as the most reprehensible method of containment, commonly targeting “strange niggers.” (Radano, 2003, p. 257) 36

Here, Radano (2003)37 explains how a legislated political movement to keep Blacks in slavery was a new iteration of control. A control that fed educational and societal stereotypes of Blacks as violent, lazy, and unintelligible that likely fueled by as a grossly exaggerated and inaccurate re-creation of a slave’s wedding. Thomas, other comedians, the White public, and then politicians profited from the racialization of Black people, music, entertainment, and economics by employing Blacks as the performers in their own plight and inauthenticity,

as [B]lack music’s visibility increased, its representations also began to stabilize. The more frequently [B]lack music appeared publicly, the more it was described as rhythm music whose “ragged” edges specified a form associated with a population out of place. In this way, we would drive the interracialism or “sameness” of [B]lack musical production would drive the value of authentically [B]lack race music, whose power accrues from a nonharmonic descent associated with European theory and its emplotments across the terrain of the American racial figuration. This powerful though contradictory logic sonically enacts a world out of place precisely because it specified racial identity at the same time it built that identify from the relation of [B]lack to[W]hite. (p. 258)

36 Radano, R. (2003). Lying up a nation: Race and black music. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press ibid. 37 ibid.

167

This quote made me wonder: could it be that I was feeling out of place in my own music classroom, and in front of my Black and Brown people because I was performing blackface by teaching children of color to know their role by admiring Whiteness through the gaze of European theories? In this inquiry, Radano helped me to see and connect stereotypes and standardization of people of color in music books and curriculum to sociohistorical and cultural contexts diluting and/or distilling oppression while accruing interests to Whites. To counter these discourses and interests would require me to break away from following the Silver Burdett curriculum series and develop my own curriculum by problematizing Whiteness and its connection to racism and oppression in music and music education. Meaning, I would have to find a way to re-present Black history as a way to critique structures and practices that re-produced and implicate all of us in sustaining inequities.

Knowledge gained from reflection and analysis of my own experiences merged with searching for literature led me to source YouTube for children’s songs and interdisciplinary media as a means to access kid friendly themes of oppression, resistance, and freedom for creating my own lessons and units. The searched revealed

Heyward’s (1999) cartoon Our Friend, Martin which centers around Miles (a student) and three classmates historically traveling through the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I found time travel as fertile context for child-friendly content to situate the current climate on a timeline of history. Furthermore, the cartoon uses historical archival footage of Black life during the 1960s civil rights movement (e.g. brutality of the Greensboro Sit-

Ins and Bloody Sunday) to evoke emotion and make real the struggle of freedom.

However, more questions arose as I screened the cartoon,

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Is it appropriate to show images of kids being attacked by dogs to other kids? How do I unpack the traumatic 1960s footage and make connections for teaching and learning right now? How do homeroom teachers structure classroom conversations and resolve conflict?

That is, I needed more information about the students I failed the most in order to answer the inquiries and change my practice. Said differently, I need to seek my students because my training in music education never addressed teacher as learner or urban students as producers, creators, and innovators of music and pedagogy. Instead, Black and Brown youth are positioned as apprentices whose job is to consume music in the image of the master. Meaning, teaching the way you are taught, without question, to conserve the tradition of the classics. In other words, doing what I always did would give me what I always got. So, I humbled myself and spent two periods of my scheduled planning time a week, for one academic quarter (roughly nine weeks) in Ms. Allen’s classroom seeking to learn more about our students.38 During that time I participated in homeroom activities and ate lunch with the class on occasion. I regularly wrote observations and notes on strategies Ms. Allen used to hook students and regain engagement. I paid attention to classroom environment and set-up, flow of the lessons, and watched how she incorporated student’s interest into her interactions and lesson planning.

Time Traveling

Breaking with tradition of students sitting in lined rows, I arranged the classroom chairs in a semicircle around the projector. I wrote a timeline on the board with these markers: August 28, 1955; December 5, 1955; May 3, 1963; and March 7, 1965. I

38 Ms. Allen also visited my classroom with students. The class was also accompanied by a paraprofessional who participated in all aspects of teaching and learning as well.

169 prepared to show the mangled image of Emmett in his casket, the way Ms. Allen and I decided to begin the unit considering our students’ homes history with conflict and trauma.

“Who is Emmett Till?” I asked, pointing to the first date.

“I don’t know, someone famous?” said Nico as laughter and a “Yo, stop playing dis shit seems serious!” fills the room.

“Yes, in a way,” the room is quiet. I go on.

“The murder of 14-year-old Emmett and the image of his tattered body his mother

Mamie Till decided to share with the world has everything to do with why we are protesting today. If you do not want to see the picture, its ok. Ms. Allen can explain outside and you are welcome back when ready.” No one leaves the room. I continue:

Emmett Tills’ body inspired Rosa Parks on December 5th to sit at the front of the bus, not because her feet were sore from working, but because she was trained in non-violent protest by her local NAACP chapter. Youth from your age to college students took to the streets in activism, in protest! As we watch the cartoon Our friend, Martin, we will see kids being attacked by dogs and water from firehoses in the spring of 1963. We will visit Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr as a young boy, travel with him to Boston, and on thru adulthood. We will see what college students endured at a sit-in at a cafe in March 1965—the same month people marched and died crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. Through the lives of the students in the cartoon, and our own, we will discuss and relate the material to what is happening now and to our upcoming performance of “So Good, The Boston Song” for the spring concert.39

Scenes from the cartoon opened space for students and I to explore past and current historical traumas as we zigzagged through history. Classroom dialogue became organic as students critically engaged with archival footage of the day at Kelly Ingram Park:

Tyler: But why da police let dogs an’ water on those kids like dat?

39 See concert program.

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Keira: (rolling her eyes) That was de law, Tyler.

Jayden: (snapping his fingers) What was de ole White guy’s name again?

Deejay: Bull Connor, the Commissioner. Why?

Jayden: Cuz, yo, he was tellin’ de police what to do. To attack de kids.

Deejay: Why does that matter?

Keira: It’s still goin’ on.

Keira, a second grader deemed emotional and intellectually impaired was able to connect the police tactics of the 1960s to present day context. But, I had not yet acquired the tools to ask, “What must we do about it, right now?” Advanced graduate research courses have taught me that asking more questions would have likely produced student-initiated action.

At the time, the teacher-directed stance afforded me space to generatively group hateful violence as a theme and design a Requiem Wall for the school community to sign as a way for students to be involved by writing their own messages of healing for Boston and the country during a time of recurring violence and bigotry.

But, another conflict was brewing. A new practice of using children’s literature to problematize issues through dialogue as the co-construction of knowledge conflicted with

Eurocentric approaches to chorus rehearsals. The traditional model of choral music education forces students to learn by sitting with feet flat on the floor and straight spines.

If standing, I reinforced arms at their side and eyes always on the conductor. Sections of music were repeated until rhythm, pitch, tone, and diction met my expectations. One day

Jazmien (Latina) yelled in frustration, “Mister Robinson, we don’t learn music like dis.

Jus’ let us sing!”

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“Jus’ let us sing!”

Transformation occurred when I stopped controlling the music-making and let students lead the way. I changed the rehearsal portion of the lesson to start with a narrative activity. One day, I asked students “What does living in Boston mean to you?”

Next, students shared experiences with a classmate. I then charted generative themes on the board while listening to students’ stories. “I like going to Fenway!” and another, “I love the Patriots!” then, Boston sports would be a general theme to locate collective experiences enabling us to see where commonality is shared. I also gave students the opportunity to lead physical warm-ups during the third and fourth quarters. This allowed for a student to begin class and set a tone for learning. We rolled our shoulders, stretched our arms to the sky as “ah, eh, ee, oh, oo” echoed the classroom.

Next, singing “The

Boston Song” followed warm-ups. For the next three listenings, students organized selves into groups and engaged a sing-thru. During this time, students discussed sections of the song needing more rehearsal and Figure 4.5: Requiem Wall brainstormed solutions.

Sometimes a complete listening was not needed, “Mister, I think we need to work on da words.” In those cases, students identified a target area and asked me to play the music

172 from a specific spot. I rejoined the conversation after the targeted rehearsal and prior to the final sing-thru. My return to the dialogue served to document learning(s), “See, look

Figure 4.6: Co-Teaching Physical Warm-up Stretches

at what you did all on your own. Those words were very clear! I am so very proud of you!” More times than not, I witnessed cohesive beautiful tone and remarkable growth in accuracy of text and rhythms. Music class then concluded with further refining for public performance and a student led improvisation activity on instruments (e.g. 3rd grade recorder), collaborative composition projects40 and/or celebrating/reflecting on growth made during class.41

As an educator working with urban youth, I had to be willing to fully immerse self in and center the local historical, sociocultural, and political contexts of race, space, place, and time of teaching and learning. This was most evident when I situated the current #BlackLivesMatter movement in the historical fight for Black liberation. To do

40 Robinson (2017) details my 2nd curriculum originally conceptualized at Franklin and further revised at the private school. 41 See student reflections in attached artifacts.

173 so, students and I used and problematized our individual and collective lived experiences with conflict and trauma of home (whether watching the Boston Marathon Bombing unfold, seeing Black bodies dead in the street, abuse at home, and all things unspoken) as our creative, experiential, intellectual and valued knowledge informing daily classroom interactions. The work here was for me to learn through dialogue with students in surpluses—not deficits. In one case, Jazmien’s anger was an expression of wanting creative freedom to sing and play. She was not being defiant. Jazmien was detecting and alerting me to difficulties confronting learning under standardized and repetitive music curriculum. She just wanted to do what kids do, play. I understood this as I came to know my most oppressed students by being a student of their lives; and, recognizing the surplus students afford classroom and curriculum and reimagine new possibilities for music education.

My tenure in BPS by all measures was a success. Albeit, I had to leave. I left

Franklin and the public-school system after the Black assistant principal (AP) accused me of “giving up on the students.” There was a group of fifth grade girls that I had a hard time reaching. One day, the Black AP asked the girls, “What are you doing in music classes?” during a morning check-in meeting.

“We watch movies.” the students responded. The next morning in the hallway as students went to lockers. And, in front of my colleagues, the AP calls, “Mr. Robinson, we need to talk, can you come here please.”

“Ok?” I respond with skepticism as I walk to meet her outside of the principal’s office where the elementary theatre, science teachers, and physical education teachers were sitting waiting for our Instructional Planning meeting to start.

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“I talked to some students yesterday for a morning check in. I asked what happened in music class. I hear you are showing movies. I take that as a sign that you have given up on these students.”

I thought I trusted her as the only Black administrator. I was angry the AP never visited my classroom to see what, how, and why of my teaching and embarrassed she reprimanded me in front of students and coworkers. I immediately left the building seeing red. “She got me fucked up!” was all I could say as I walked around the school to calm myself. 42

A month later I submitted my resignation and accepted a job teaching at an elite private school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was simply burnt out with the lack of support and understanding from administration and the complexity of the urban school system I was not fully prepared to navigate.

iv. doctoral student in music teacher education

I was recruited to get my doctorate. And, I always dreamed of reaching the highest levels in academia. But my experiences broke me down and made me forget that becoming Dr. Deejay was even possible. I was presenting at the New Directions Music

Education Conference at Michigan State University in February of 2017 when two professors encouraged me to apply for a doctorate of education. I told the professors I would not apply because (a) I did not want to re-take the GRE since it had been more

42 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKigC19_-W0

175 than 5 years since my last test, (b) previously applied to doctoral studies at Harvard and

BU and was denied, and (c) currently enjoying the triumphs and trials of teaching and creating my own curriculum.

“We understand; and, our school does not require the GRE. Just think about it.”

“OK, I will think about it.” I replied as we finished the conversation over coffee before parting ways to board separate flights at Capital Regional International Airport. I had no intentions of completing the application.

A couple of weeks later I was giving an invited webinar for NAfME’s Cultural

Diversity and Social Justice Committee.43 At the conclusion of the webinar after everyone logged off, the moderator said, “Deejay, you really should consider getting your doctorate. You are a hot name in music education right now and can get a lot of funding.”

“You are the third person to tell me this. Two professors asked me two weeks ago at the New Directions Conference.” I resigned remembering the resonance of Granny always said some things come in 3s. So, I listen and acted on what I always wanted to do, applied for the third time to get my doctorate. The next day, I informed one of the professors who recruited me I would apply. I submitted my application within two days.

Two months later I was admitted, fully funded…weeks after my brother’s murder and funeral.

43 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObPtqTev2So&feature=youtu.be

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Learning to Teach at Teachers College

At Teachers College (TC), part of my doctoral responsibilities was to serve as student teacher supervisor (STS). This job allowed me to travel the boroughs of New

York City facilitating the student teaching field experience for in-service and pre-service music education licensure candidates. This works builds upon me hosting student teachers for Boston University and Berklee College of Music while I was teaching in

BPS. That being I’ve had the pleasure of facilitating the field teaching experience of numerous of pre-service students prior to admittance to the TC music & music education program.

As an STS I was required to facilitate four in-person meetings: an initial session to set semester goals and objectives with student teacher (ST) and cooperating teacher

(CT) and 3 formative lesson observations and assessments of the lesson. Observations and debriefs of lesson were conducted in collaboration with the CT. The third observation was a summative assessment of STs overall development according to the Danielson teaching rubric. Additional responsibilities included providing written feedback to ST weekly online blogs and assessing a portion of the student teachers’ NY state accreditation portfolios. STs are also enrolled in a weekly seminar with the university professor (UP) aimed at discussing problems of practice encountered during field work and learning best practices through reading research articles and a multicultural music education textbook. On occasion guest lectures/workshops are held at the discretion of the UP. Taken together, about 4 days of the roughly 16 weeks in a term were dedicated to in-person interactions between student teacher supervisor and student teacher. To be clear, STS spends the least amount of time interacting with STs, yet student teacher

177 supervisors have the most responsibility in the development, growth, and promotion of the pre-service teacher to credentialed teacher. Inadequate divisions of time, labor, and weight of accountability and responsibility between ST and UP, STS and ST was a problem of practice causing conflict and a blurring of power dynamics to which

Whiteness gave Meredith, Nichols, and the UP an advantage.

I recall having a pleasant, joyful, and informative experience with all student teachers, until October 2017 of my first semester at TC; when, I was summoned into 3 different meetings: the last one ending with a White professor calling me adversarial, inexperienced, and threatened to remove my scholarship. This was done after I asked two

White students (Meredith and Nichols) to consider their positionality of Whiteness in contrast to the majority Black and Brown students they were teaching—particularly in the context of a Trump Presidency. The two STS in many ways resemble the teachers captured in research on well-intentioned Whites educators, those who strive to celebrate the diversities of students’ intersecting identities by advocating for and implementing equal opportunity polices that create transformative spaces of voice and empowerment

(see Benedict, 2006; Hess, 2017; Marx, 2006; Picower, 2009).44 Theoretically, this is said

44 Benedict, C. (2006). Defining ourselves as other: Envisioning transformative possibilities. In Frierson-Campel, C. (Ed.), Teaching Music in the Urban Classroom (pp. 3-13). Lenham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Hess, J. (2017). Critiquing the critical: The casualties and paradoxes of critical pedagogy in music education. Philosophy of Music Education Review, 25(2), 171-191. Marx, S. (2006). Revealing the invisible: Confronting passive racism in teacher education. New York, New York: Routledge Picower, B. (2009). The unexamined Whiteness of teaching: How White teachers maintain an enact dominant racial ideologies

178 to be done by the teacher nestling uncomfortably in their biases and then acting to challenge sociopolitical power structures.

Both student teachers demonstrated evidence of their commitment to meeting the needs of their students. Nicholas wanted to student teach in an environment that would enable him to question his Whiteness. He told me about his willingness to grow as a public-school teacher in contrast to his upbringing in private schools, because “that’s where the jobs are, in the public schools.” Meredith designed her own worksheets and rooted guided listening activities in music from around the world. Nicholas actively sought out and attended critical race theory professional development workshops and seminars. Both Meredith and Nichols also grappled with the practicality of constructivist education and democratic learning in minoritized communities under assessment and standardized curricula mandates, just like me when I was a novice teacher. And, in discourse and in practice Meredith’s and Nichols’s language unmasked deficit views of

Black and Brown students creating conflict when carrying out curriculum. For example,

Meredith expressed challenges sustaining student engagement. She often observed that students would talk over her. “Could everyone hush please! This is a quiet activity. I should see people writing!” Meredith firmly reinforced in frustration to the number of conversations happening during a Do Now. Some students laughed. Others continued to work. Meredith’s response may seem harmless as I have said similar things as well. I also cannot ignore a couple of students’ reactions as potentially disrespectful and rude.

However, a deeper analysis is needed.

The CT and I sat with Meredith to highlight her accomplishments in crafting a well-executed lesson during the debrief as with the previous two observations. I

179 suggested she take a more culturally responsive approach and look beyond behavior knowing that Meredith expressed interests in exploring critical pedagogy in the classroom and to further her growth in working with urban youth. To do so, I asked

Meredith to consider “What are students talking about? Is the assignment you created too easy? Too hard? Did student(s) understand the directions or decided to talk instead of risk embarrassment in asking for clarification?” In short, I thought I provided a lens for

Meredith to (a) consider how directions are phrased and (b) seek understanding of student behavior by asking questions and resisting the urge to react based upon assumptions. Put another way, I suggested Meredith leave open the possibility that race and power are at play in contextualizing her interactions with students.

Nichols expressed dissatisfaction with student implementations of morning routines and transitions. “I don’t understand why these students don’t come to school ready to learn?” Nichols once wrote in a blog. “Why is it soo hard for them to come into the room, get their notebooks, and come around the piano, even though the CT and I have taught the routines?” “Why are transitions hard, especially for my students with IEP’s?”45

“These are seniors they should know basic music theory by now!” As with Meredith, lesson debriefs always began with Nichols reflecting upon the experience. Next, the CT and I would use Nichols’s observations as a springboard for highlighting his specific achievements. Then all three would dialogue about areas for growth. Since students with

IEPs were of particular interest to Nichols, I suggested in that Nicholas read Leonardo

45 Individualized Education Program. Winterman & Roseas (2014). Chapter 1: Overview of the history and legal perspective of special education and Chapter 7: Least restrictive environment, cover themes (historical, cultural, and political contexts) raised within this essay.

180 and Broderick’s (2001) Smartness as Property and told him I found the article helpful in reframing my conceptualization of systemic barriers disabling students whom are overwhelming Black and Brown. Nichols never responded. A week later the UP summoned me into a series of three meetings, two back to back and one the following week.

“Deejay, during our debriefs of lesson observations in seminar class, Meredith said that you told her “not to give directions.” She, and, I have a hard time understanding how she is to teach without giving students instructions. Moreover, Meredith expressed that your presence in the classroom is an authoritative power only concerned with pushing your personal views of education over her personal growth and development.” the White UP bemoaned. During the second meeting with the UP (and only minutes after

Meredith’s meeting) I was told Nichols felt unable to “please me” and that I “do not listen” to him.

In a third meeting with only the UP, I informed her of the hurt and isolation I experienced the previous week. I told her, “For two hours I was stuck in the corner of this table in your office and was attacked, mischaracterized, and backed into a wall by you and the student teachers.”

I asked her why the CT’s were never contacted and thus inquired about the absence of their voice providing more context to the interactions and a more nuanced perspective into my practice of conducing lesson observations and debriefs.

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“Well, I do not go to the schools so I can only go by what they [student teachers] tell me, Deejay. And, from my past experience supervising student teachers, I know how hard they work when students are just sitting in the back of the classroom eating Doritos”

Personal Communication 2017, Nov 21 the UP stated.

Stunned at what I just heard, I referenced my scholarship in double-consciousness theory as evidence of my lived experience as a Black man in our White- dominated field linking problematic undertones and student achievement stated in the UPs comments.

“That exemplifies the gap between theory and practice I write about and I cannot sit here and listen to you talk about students that way.” I told the UP.

“You are too young and inexperienced to be critiquing my practice and the institution” the UP immediately interjected. She goes on “They are student teachers, they have to learn how to teach first before they can do social justice.”

I disagreed, “Teaching and social justice are one!”

“That’s your problem, Deejay. What I see is a young inexperienced man learning how to be a teacher educator in a very competitive program.”

“Listen, you ain’t gon’ keep talkin’ to me that way. I will leave.” I stated as I felt my blood boiling and evident in my slip of the tongue and into Ebonics (Gay, 2010).

“You are so adversarial.” the White UP declared. Which for me was code for an

Angry Nigger.

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“Das it! I need to go!” I fumble as my hands shake to put the cap on my pen and close my notebook where I had been scribbling notes of the entire encounter.

“I wish you would get up and leave. That would be a very big mistake.” the UP sneered.

“Are you threatening me? I will not be patronized!” I enunciated as I looked into the eyes of a professor I once trusted. Then, stood up and left the meeting.

Personal Communication 2017, Nov 21

The following semester, I was reassigned from student teaching supervision to be another professor’s instructional assistant; of which the White-male UP and person who recruited me stated, “there are no funds left to pay you for this work.” I also experienced irregularities in the distribution of my scholarship and was not paid until November 2018 for teaching the college hired me to do for conferences during June, July, and August of

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2018. These irregularities in the distribution of my funding led me to financial aid and the bursar’s office in order to understand what was happening with my account. And, put a body to the numbers listed on computer spreadsheets. Little did I know that soon security would be called on me as a display of the ultimate power of White supremacy to be exercised over my life. Or, I realized just how close I am too Trayvon Martin (Coates,

2015).46

I AM DEEJAY ROBINSON

I walked into the Bursars Office wearing my fitted New York Yankees 2000

Subway Series hat, a Tarheel blue T-shirt with my 2-chainz dripping, black shorts, and

Nike Air Jordan 8 Retro BG Augua’s on my feet. My right arm is also fully tatted with a lotus flowers, koi fish, and a Kinatro (Japanese warrior). Some may think this is out of tradition for an Ivy League dress. Be that as it may, “this story, told in the workings of ink and flesh, illustrates a young man’s use of texts and tattoos to revise a shattered self- portrait” (p. 375).47 Meaning, ink spilled on these sheets and my body is a form of resistance to oppression; and, liberation from being an angry, docile, distressed, inexperienced, talented Nigger. Simply Put, I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO.48

“Hey, can I help you?” greets the Asian secretary.

46 Coates, T. (2015). Between the world and me. New York, NY: Spiegel & Grau 47 Kirkland, D. E. (2009). The skin we ink: Tattoos, literacy, and a new English education. English Education, 43(4), 375-395. 48 Baldwin (2016).

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“Yes, Hi. My name is Deejay Robinson and I am here to inquire about my account. I was told by a gentlemen in this office that I should have received my scholarship into my personal bank account by today.”

“Did you check your account?” the secretary asks.

“I did and the $4,000 I am owed is not there.”

“Let me check.” She takes my university credentials and logs into my student account. “The funds should be there” she responds and continues, “One second, let me call my manager.” Moments later the secretary hangs up the phone, “There was a mistake and the funds will not be credited until Monday.”

“What do you mean a mistake? Someone needs to explain to me what is going on?”

At this time the Latino Accounts Manager comes around the corner and joins the conversation. I repeat to him, “I was told by two people in this office that my money would be in my Chase bank account today; and, now I am told there is a mistake. What is going on?”

“Well, the website says refunds will not be distributed until the 15th of the month.”

“Ok, so now you are telling me the 15th and your colleagues said today. This communication is unacceptable because there is a human body who has to eat and live in this expensive city.” I say taking out my wallet, hand shaking and throwing the last $7 that I have on the counter. I then reach for my phone to show the account manger the $4 that I have in my bank account.

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“What are you doing?” the Latino manager stutters for a moment before he recognizes my iPhone. “Are you going to show me your bank account? You don’t have to do that. There is nothing we can do for you until Monday.”

“Nah, this is not OK. Someone needs to explain to me what is going on with my account and why there is a communication problem in this office because it directly impacts my ability to live.”

At this time another Latino male who is the Assistant Director of the office comes around the corner and asks, “What is going on? Maybe I can help you?” I then proceed for a third time to explain the situation, of which he responds, “Well, the website says the

15th, so there really is nothing we can do until then.”

“Y’all, I am not the one. Two of you are saying the 15th , one said it was mistake, and the other said my scholarship should be in my account today. The communication problem in this office is completely unacceptable. I feel like this is happening all over again.”

“Listen, you need to calm down and stop being stop being so aggressive.” the

Latino Assistant Director demanded.

“ ‘Scuse me? You aint goin’ talk to me dat way. I AM DEEJAY ROBINSON!

Google me. Part of my dissertation is writing about my experiences at this institution.

Please do not stereotype me for the way that I choose to communicate. This will not be the end of it.”

“Come here let me talk to you in my office.” the Assistant Director responds.

“Y’all have got to be kidding me. This is unacceptable.” I say laughing as a defense mechanism to cope with the pain I feel and to keep myself calm, as if to say

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smiling, “Yesua boss, you right, I must be stupid. Yessua”49 following the White-passing

Latino Assistant Director down the hall and feeling the all-white walls cave in on me.

“You need to calm down and stop being aggressive or I will call security.” the AD turns around and says pointing his finger and puffing up his chest at me.

“What! Call security on me because of the way I communicate about the miscommunication problem in this office? Nah bruh you crazy. I am not the one.”

“You saying “you are not the one” is the problem and that is why I am calling security. You need to leave.” he says raising his voice and performing an about-face marching me toward the exit.

“It is a fact. I am not the one. And, I know exactly what you are trying to do— because this is what my research is. You are trying to stereotype me because of the way I am dressed and how I am communicating with you. But, I will do you a favor and tell security myself.” I declared as I exited the office.

Three days later I found out I was “banned” from the bursar’s office.

I cannot prove the patronization by the UP and changes in my funding were connected. But, in that moment history seemed to be repeating itself again. A banning from a university office was analogous to suspension from middle school. To boot, it was not the U.S. government collecting my money; this time, it was the program and the institution that employed and recruited me. In both instances individuals and institutions used their power to play with my economic and educational lifeline putting me on a path to food pantries and public assistance. This was endured while attending school and being

49 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CN9DN_PImy8

187 a Black-Queer doctoral student learning to teach and teaching to learn in a city of abundant access, wealth, and privilege. But my run-in with security did not end here. An institutionalization of enforcement and policing over Black bodies was getting ready to made plain once again. And, an institution re-committing to diversity under the “distress” of a murdered spirit.

Am I Next? Am I Now?

An email from TC administrators to music and music education students began,

We are writing to reaffirm some core values of our institution: that we are committed to providing a working, learning and living environment free from discrimination and harassment and to fostering a vibrant, nurturing community founded upon the fundamental dignity and worth of all of its members. As you know, there was an incident last month that caused distress and, ultimately, has encouraged a dialogue on how we can work towards becoming a better, more inclusive academic community. On October 1, 2019 one of our Black male doctoral students staged a protest over his concerns about the lack of diverse perspectives within the Music Education program by playing music out loud in the hallway of Horace Mann. Faculty from the program, who were meeting in a nearby room, called Public Safety. We, as well as other members of our community, have been concerned about this choice, given the national climate around law enforcement’s treatment of individuals, particularly of Black and Brown men. Two Public Safety officers arrived quickly, and engaged with the student in a respectful dialogue…Nonetheless, the faculty involved have acknowledged that this situation should have been handled through dialogue and collaboration and have apologized for calling Public Safety.50

For further context, I have been leading (at times covertly) a diverse student movement to unearth student experiences with racist Eurocentric colonial curriculum and instruction within the music and music education program; while, also transforming space and place (Emdin, 2016). During the course of my attendance at TC, I have

50 Personal Communication (2019, November 15).

188 organized with a cohort of TC music education students and alumni since Spring 2018.

Our battles have yielded structural changes to the program and curriculum by:

1. Increased support for students to attend conferences. Whereas before, students were only allowed reimbursements of $200, student can now have up to $300 for attending conferences and up to $500 for presenting at conferences. Moreover, students that do not have the finances to pay up-front costs can now have the department cover the expenses. Additionally, this structural (policy) change brings the program more “aligned with other program policies for students support stipends in the Department of Arts and Humanities”51 (This means the department’s policy was not attuned, and in a way, operating separately from the larger institution).

2. We have advocated for the removal of images of Whiteness (former professors; all of whom were White) from the hallway walls. Why, because if we as a program are going to be inclusive and tout diversity, then the images we see should also be diverse. In this vain, images of faculty have been removed. And, a Student Voices Bulletin Board erected.

3. On Tuesday March 26, 2019, we met with faculty to present a case for revising the Western European Classical music centered doctoral Aural Exam. In a pluralistic society, specifically a society with Afrocentric music is heralded as brilliant outside of school, there is little argument for judging and deeming future generations of teacher-educators (and thereby future students) by the aesthetics, constructions, and standards of Western European Classical music. We argued (with musical examples bolstering the case) that prioritizing Western European Classical music is a delegitimization and silencing of the musical epistemologies of people of color. Through the meeting had a contentious start, we are pleased to announce a commitment by the faculty to revise the exam by the October 2019 test date. And, the revised test will be implemented for the Fall 2019-2020 academic year.52

Be that as it may, even though I am tearing shit up, this justice and equity work came at another terrible cost. Or, as chronicled in The Lost Education of Horace Tate by educational historian Dr. Vanessa Siddle Walker (2019), Black activists during the

1960’s Civil Rights Movement had come to recognize “that at times [we] will have to

51 Internal department communication e-mailed out to the program’s list serve. 52 Ibid.

189 live desperate and with nothing to go upon for encouragement but hope and faith that justice will eventually triumph” (p. 198). Meaning, you will have to pay the “cost of

White retaliation” (p. 147).

As a review, I have endured the White music & music education professor threats and degradation, redistribution of scholarship from bi-weekly payments to a semester lump sum totaling a losing $1,200 a semester, dissertation research diverted to another program and department, and months without payment for independent contract work for the college. Additionally, once diverted from being a student teacher supervisor (the job providing bi-weekly pay) I was asked to be an instructional assistant for a class; of which,

I was denied compensation by another White professor. When I inquired about the irregularities of distribution of funds and the detrimental effect on my living, a member from Financial Services called me “aggressive” and the office banned me from their building. All these delay and changes in funding left me consistently behind on bills, rent, and gathering food from pantries and relying on community for support. This includes me humbly asking my plug to “hold me down” for a week until I got paid—just so I can barely make some ends meet.

Moreover, my new monthly income now consists of bi-weekly checks of $337 from teaching a course at another NY institution is not enough to pay all the bills. To make matters murky, I have been sitting in an apartment where a melody of shitty water trickles from my kitchen ceiling and rings in the air of my home and filling breath in my lungs. That being when summer had given way to amber, ruby, and emerald leaves falling off trees and a crisp chill fell upon Harlem signaling winter. When nearly six semesters of stress laid upon my shoulders and none of the administration or faculty kept

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Figure 4.9: Facebook Protest Playlist their word to meet with students regarding our concerns. To boot, all stakeholders

(administrators, faculty, and students) indicated these items were of grave concern and agreed to meet over summer 2019 for further dialogue—This was the deafening silence that took me to the halls protesting

(a) declining culture of respect for students of color and Jewish students, (b) curriculum and certification exams dominated by

Western European classical ideologies, (c) irregularities in student (even some White ones) funding, and (c) advocation for the hiring of faculty of color with experience in urban education.

Therefore, on three separate occasions—I sat outside of music and music education faculty offices playing J. Cole, Nipsy Hussle, Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, and Toni Morrison from my laptop speakers. Yet it was on the third protest in October the all-White music and music education faculty called security; and, then took 7 weeks to apologize and acknowledged the situation should have been handled through dialogue and collaboration.

“I am going to sit outside the faculty meeting and play some music.” I warned the office staff prior to conducting the protest.

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“Thank you for letting met know. I appreciate that.” one staff member replied. It was necessary for me to run interference because the first protest two weeks prior caught staff off guard. That being the point of a protest, a disturbance.

Staff: Deejay, your music is disturbing me and keeping me from focusing on my work. Can you turn it down please?

Deejay: The white supremacy in these walls is loud too and I find it hard to concentrate on my work as well. You can take your concerns up with the Program Director.

Staff: Oh. I am sorry that you feel that way. Thank you for letting me know” the White student worker replied.

Just as important as a warning, it was also essential that I have witnesses (other than the cameras). Meaning, at the time there were several student workers and students in the office. Not to mention, adjunct faculty were teaching private lessons in adjacent classrooms.

For this third protest, I decide to sit on an old church bench wearing my Columbia hat embroider with crown and three crosses as I played the same songs by the same artists outside of the room where the pink sign was posted on the white door: ‘Faculty meeting in progress, do not disturb.’

The door opens on song 3. One of the senior male professors—whose classes I have taken—looks directly into my eyes. Says nothing. And, shuts the door. I continued through the playlist, but a strange tickling feeling came over me.

“Ding” the elevator sounded as the doors slide open and three security guards in puffy dark blue coats exit. I know both of the Brown guards of color, very well. I converse with them every day that I am on campus. We lock eyes and fix our faces to eke out that concealing laughter.

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“So, we got a call about a disturbance and we don’t know where its coming from.

Can you turn down the music?” Officer Dan says to me.

I decrease the sound by two clicks on my laptop. “Well, I already told the people in the office I would be sitting here playing music. You might want to check with the faculty meeting in there.” I point to the door as they turn and one security guard knocks and all three walk into the room. I then raise the volume and continue protesting.

“Can you come over here and let me talk to you for a moment, Deejay,” Officer

Dan says as he leads the two others out of the room.

“Sure.” I reply closing my laptop abruptly ending the music.

“The faculty have a right to meet and they feel threatened by the music. However, you also have every right to protest.”

“I understand that, thank you” I continued, “But, they have not upheld their end to meet with students about our concerns. This is unacceptable. What they should be doing is discussing their complicity in White supremacy.”

“Well.” Officer Dan sighs through the puff of his breath. “Can you do me a favor for today? Find another way to protest.”

“Sure, because it’s not about me. It’s about our Black and Brown children. Many of them I don’t even know.” I uttered as an out of body experience took over. My mouth was moving and my voice was speaking. Yet, the resonance was not mine. “But, only if I can yell THE WHITE SUPREMACY IN THESE HALLS IS LOUD TOO.”

“Absolutely.” replied the guard. “You are not going to go in there and do it are you?”

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“Nah man, I’m ain’t that crazy!” I smirk as the guards and I share a laugh and shake hands.

Dis Shit is Toxic: Colonialisms Burns of White Supremacy

When I got home that cold night my professors called security on me, I began to think about the entire TC experience. I sat down on the couch exhausted from the intensity and energy of the moment. It was in the silence of feeling every vein tingle that

I realized I could have been laying red in hall—had it not been for my personal relationship with security. Here, campus security did everything right by engaging dialogue and choosing to see me, my right to protest, and necessity to lift up children of color. College administrators and program faculty failed.

I looked at the leak53 in my kitchen ceiling that rains brown through the light as the “muddy bubbles roll across my floor.”54 It’s shitty.55 I thought about the fact that I must be better with my health because two days prior the doctor told me my Vitamin D levels are very low affecting the production of bone marrow, T-cell count, and my immune system—explaining the weakness and lethargic nature of the past 2 months. I felt heaviness of the 18-22 hours of repeating 60 minutes I’ve spent working, writing,

53 I was inspired to return to this spiritual after two high school friends, a Black male playwright and White female director’s production of Oracular Recall at a garden festival. Moved by the play’s Black women retelling stories and closing with the spiritual led me to YouTube to find LaShun Pace’s (2001) “There’s a leak in this ole building” Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBFzhN_wObw 54 “River in the Rain” from the 1985 Broadway cast recording of Big River: Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcXxQreSGG8 55 Videos 1 and 2

194 trying to make this program, the department, college, university, field of music education, teacher education, and thereby the world a much better and equitable place. But the toll that takes on the body burns and tears the very T-cells needed to fight. And the lesions its leaves are like the burned tearing of flesh my great-great-great grandmother Helon Jones bore on her breast, shriveled sears of back scars bore by Black women, rope burn necks of men hanging from trees, dragged by trucks or boys found in the bottom of rivers, and girls gruesomely grounded under rubble of a bombed Rectory. But I had been here before.

Two years prior in January of 2017, I was teaching at a private independent day school. I came to teach there after leaving my position as a PreK-5 general music teacher in the public school system. I decided to leave the public school system because I felt helpless and alone in addressing systemic barriers within that space, barriers that continually tell Black and Brown children that their educational attainment will come last to Whites and Asians. My decision to accept the position came after witnessing an affinity lunch on the private school’s campus.56 At this particular affinity lunch, Black and Caribbean students were discussing their spring break trips. While I felt out of place listening to elementary students talk of trips to Saint Martin, I was also excited and knew

I wanted to be at a school where people intentionally create spaces for the fellowship of students and faculty of color. But, the appearance was a just a veneer covering the rosebud of Whiteness. Meaning, I found a seat at the table for student-centered diversity programming (e.g. diversity assemblies, concerts). However, discomfort and disease of

56 An affinity lunch is where students and teachers gather in race-based groups to discuss race specific issues pertaining to lived experiences on and off campus.

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White supremacy infected me as I was a hyper-visible voice from the margins battling the demands of a Black-Queer male teacher grappling with and speaking up about the legitimacy and worth of his perspective and identity in and out of school.

At the independent day school, and if I am to be honest, like the public school I left, and the universities I attend(ed), I often witnessed a willingness to address certain issues of diversity, while issues surrounding race continue to be ignored, or glossed over.

For example, the private school made tremendous progress in supporting our LGBTQ students and families, moving beyond banal classroom discussions and into the realm of praxis by removing single-sex bathroom signs and participating in days of silence. Yet, I am met with fear, resistance, and silence when I suggest similar awareness and action- driven initiatives regarding #BlackLivesMatter movement, institutional racism, and issues students and faculty of color face. A fear that unconsciously says, “I am not ready to face my interests in protecting and sustaining White privilege. Because if I do, I must admit that I am ill and spreading a virus.” But it is heard loud and clear on the ears of people of color. This fear leads to resistance from seeing ones complicity in perpetuating oppression and blind inoculation from intentional and unintentional wrongdoing.

I tried to advocate for a school space where the few Black and Brown students we taught could express themselves and heal from the trauma of school and schooling. For example, while preparing for our PEACE winter concert, a blond curly haired White girl with blue eyes innocently spat on a beautiful 4-year old Black boy with a fade lining the matted curls of his crown. She spat on him because he got in line sooner than she. In that moment, I thought about the image of an older White man pushing a Black girl at a

Trump Rally and the Black man being punched in the face as he is escorted by police

196 officers to crowds cheering “USA. USA. USA.” I felt the sting of water hoses on the children and the dog bite on the thighs of youth in 1963. I heard the words of the White administrators tell me, “I am derailing the good work the school has done around racial equity,” “You are asking us to move too fast! Wait, it’s not time yet!” Time stood still and in that moment all I could say to her, as my mother said to me:

“Spitting on someone is the most degrading thing you can ever do to another

human being. Don’t e*ver do that again.”

She cried. I cared; yet, a higher lesson was important. Or to use Jimmy’s

(1955/2012) words in Stranger in the Village “People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them” (p. 167). My point here is that racism often times unbeknownst to the carrier of the attack through White supremacy pierces Black and Brown bodies and may not be seen until there are flashing blue and red lights. Or felt until wounds are wide. All of which happens when the body is tired and running out of breath. As the old folks say,

“No good deed goes unpunished.” And, I might add, especially when dealing with White women.

Shit hitting the fan caused many sleepless nights of me agonizing over whether or not I was making a difference. I walked around campus contemplating if this elite private school was the right place for me. I developed two large cysts in my inner thigh making it difficult to walk. A trip to the emergency room left me out of work for three weeks stuffing open wounds where bacteria had to be cut out of my body. All tests came back negative. Yet there I lay nursing my own body back to health: washing the wounds with warm soap and water, putting Curity gauze in the holes allowing the gashes to close themselves. I laid on my couch healing my body; feeling every stich and pinch of nerve

197 re-connecting and flesh becoming whole as “dreams of vengeance” (Baldwin, 1955, p.

171) were being nourished. Yet the scars would always remain. And now that it is almost three years later, and once again I find myself and my body in peril at another private school.

After the ordeal with the all-White TC music & music education faculty, I developed a cold-like sore on the right side of my upper lip (the same right side of the two scars on my inner thigh). “I hope this bite is not still on my lip come next Tuesday” I spoke into my phone’s microphone recording app during week 2 field note reflection following teaching and collecting data for my dissertation. I admit to battling sexual demons much like Nina Simone (2016) explicitly journaled in What Happened, Miss

Simone and James Baldwin (1971) eludes to in trips to Paris, “of course I got torn up too!”57 while rapping with Margret Mead in their Rap on Race. Or, Sula a character in

Toni Morrison’s (1973) second novel entitled Sula. In the novel, the Black female protagonist, Sula grew up in a predominately female environment and was exposed to many men coming in and out of the home. I, too, was essentially raised by a network of

Black women. Meaning, I observed the women in my family do what many women do— interact with men. Yet, as a queer Boy straddling masculinity, femininity, and sexuality; I was always told, “You have child-bearing hips!”, “You are soo pretty you should have been a girl”, “Boy, don’t walk with your wrist broke like that!”, “He got a little sugar in his tank.” All of that is to say that I was keenly attuned to the courting, responses,

57 reelblack, reelblack. (2017, January 9). Margaret Mead & James Baldwin-A rap on race (1971) [Video file]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WNO6f7rjE0

198 actions, and mating of both men and women whom I watched and heard all throughout childhood.

For Sula, sex,

was the only place where she could find what she was looking for: misery and the ability to feel deep sorrow. She had not always been aware that it was sadness that she yearned for. Lovemaking seemed, to her, at first, the creation of a special kind of joy. She thought she liked the sootiness of sex and its comedy; she laughed a great deal during the raucous beginnings, and rejected those lovers who regarded sex as healthy or beautiful. Sexual aesthetics bored her. Although she did not regard sex as ugly (ugliness was boring also), she liked to think of it as wicked. But as her experiences multiplied she realized that not only was it not wicked, it was not necessary for her to conjure up the idea of wickedness in order to participate fully. (Morrison, 1973, p. 122)

Similar to Sula, sex for me can be transactional, a type of momentary “possession”

(Morrison, 1973, p. 131). A way to fill and feel the loneliness. Desire to be seen.

Touched. Taken in and swallowed. Enwrapped with warmth and comfort. Almost womb like. Engulfed in vulnerability and then released. Sometimes discarded. Sometimes used, yet strangely full-filled. I have experienced sex to be more. A playful timeout. Puckering.

Tapping dat ass. Instruments meeting, breathing, beating, mixing and moaning ecstasy.

Melodious exculpations and exacerbated sighs. Breath and touch as communication built on love. All things considered, most notably my lack of sexual activity (doctoral research and fighting for equity was draining me) led me to know that this strange appearance on my lip may be different.

I routinely take PrEP58 and never had herpes simplex I or II. So, on Wednesday I went to my scheduled appointment and was prescribed a medication that left my beard

58 Truvada for PrEP commercial Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GEOB9aplh0

199 with glittering tastes of gold and metallic while awaiting test results. Once again, test results came back negative for all STIs. The only new medication prescribed was Vitamin

D pills to treat the deficiency. What, then could explain the negative test results and the appearance of a burn on my upper lip that I healed with Aloe Vera and Coconut Oil? Or as Toni described Sula’s facial marking, “everybody knew the meaning of the birthmark over her eye; it was not a stemmed rose, or a snake, it was Hannah’s ashes marking her from the very beginning” (p. 114). That is, the mark of a mysterious and terrible incident, in the case of the novel, the burning death of Hannah, Sula’s mother. Or, for me, was it

Helon, my great-great-great grandmother’s ashes from the burn on her breast?

Just like the shitty walls of the college that briefly stood bare of the black and white photos of White music education professors that are now vomited with colorful artistic images depicting Western European classical music in paint (instead of the White images of professors), serves to give the perception of diversity while concealing White supremacy. Just as the affinity lunch regurgitating diversity rather than digesting the interests accrued to Whiteness. I, wonder if all of dis shit I have been intaking from “the people who have cost me more in anguish and rage” (Baldwin, 1955, p. 168) has finally reached another point of highest toxicity in my body. Or, as Granny would say, “I am pist off to the highest pissivity.” That being “rage cannot be hidden, it can only be dissembled” (p. 169). And just like my great-great-great grandmother’s breast burned by the hand of a White woman pushing a hot biscuit against her; as well as my thigh and lip permanently stained by undiagnosed infections. Perhaps Chicana feminist Anzaldúa

(1987) in Borderlands La Frontera and the Black sistahs of the Combahee River

Collective (1977) are right, the collective resistance, power, and intellect is always

200 marked on the body of the oppressed. Specifically, Black and Brown women and particularly Black and Latinx Trans communities. To understand this mess I found myself in required me to do what I always do: seek a higher level of consciousness. Or, to echo a jewel Prince dropped to Nas, I need to “own my Masters.”59And so, aligning with many creatives who have gone before me, I rolled several blunts, called my best friend in the city (an immigrant from Bangladesh who works at the bodega) and we visited Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

My trip on LSD was not as technicolor and vibrant as The Beatles depicted. We landed at Season 1 Episode 5 of The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants. In the episode elementary students and friends George and Herald dream of toilet papering (TPing) their school because of an evil French teacher that treats children unfairly and immerses students in a colonial French curriculum that is irrelevant. Toilet paper is important because the French teacher frequently uses the bathroom leaving the school in a supply shortage. If George and Herald can get access to toilet paper, then the mean French teacher could be exposed as the one using it all up. George and Herald head to the store to buy toilet paper. But, are informed that they are banned by the principal who fears the two might be trying to pull a prank. To their surprise the boys learn of a shipment that will be arriving at their school the following day. Once at school, George and Herald spot the toilet paper and try several times to get it but are unsuccessful until they are asked to guard the shipment during a cafeteria gravy spill. Opportunity finally presents itself and they seize the toilet paper and completely TP the school outraging administration and the

59 Off the Radio (2019) Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ5z1OprZto

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French teacher. Another problem arises though. The toilet paper clogs the pipes, explodes, and wraps the French teacher turning her into a teacher mummy asking,

“Where is the TP?”

To handle the situation George and Herald turn into their alter ego Captain

Underpants to fight the mummy teacher who is shouting “I will destroy you” while punching Captain Underpants in the face. The remedy now is to find the giant T.E.R.D.S. toilet and flush the mummy teacher in it. They do and the toilet explodes. “What’s that smell…it smells like a toilet.” The former mummy teacher now returned French teacher asked. George and Herald respond in an aside:

“That was amazing. Too bad no one will ever know because we’re deep inside the mountain of T.E.R.D.S. Sad high five. Guess we’ll never be legends.”

The narrator interjects:

Except, in fact, they would be legends, because that huge amount of toilet paper flew through the sky and completely covered Jerome Horwitz Elementary School. They did it. Those knuckleheads did it. Legends.

Then, I realized why shit keeps reoccurring in my life. Some of us have to expose and clean up other people’s shit. Like the brilliant Lumpenproletariat: pimps, prostitutes, porters, plugs, pedagogues, and ghetto philosophers—from the dynamic Dyckman neighborhood where we reside—cleaning toilets in NYC high-rise towers while in da hood dreaming, planning, and talking about a better reality under the watchful and controlling threat of the police looming. We are like George, Herald, and soo many others exposing blockades of shit constituting our institutions. We are the rags absorbing extreme amounts of toxic waste.

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Yet, there is something complex and beautiful about swimming in shit; because, shit by another name is manure. Or as Granny called it Sugar. Honey. Ice. Tea. And, ma*nu*re is fertile soil of nutrients. Meaning, out of the shittiest parts of life’s circumstances: sweetness, growth, new life, and transformation will transpire.

What burns within me and in many Black and Brown bodies is transformational power. Mighty ancestral power to warn and warm, detect and deter, and branch out and grow roots in community; so, we as a people can ma*neu*ver up out of dismal situations marked by the oppressions of capitalism, colonialism, poverty, and racism. Dis shit is toxic. Yet a balm of salvation soothes in a willingness to see and recognize the explicit and raw parts of ourselves & our collective histories in contexts as pipelines of positionalities for constructing realities while maneuvering through the toxicity of White supremacy. That is, under all the pressure of European discourses of the primitive, barbaric, and savage representations of Black folx, a new North American “Negro” has broke through and pathways for transformative discursive practices are coming into being.

In closing, one morning I was on Facebook when a friend contacted me about a position at a city college in New York. The music education program needed to add another section of their Music for Elementary School course, a requirement for general elementary education majors. I submitted my resume and received a phone call the same day and was hired two days later (without an in-person interview) because of my experience in elementary education and scholarship in social justice. To be clear, I supervised eight music education student teachers as a doctoral student teacher supervisor during my first year at TC. In years two and three, I have taught over 75 elementary

203 education pre-service student teachers as an adjunct lecturer. That’s nine times increase in number of student teachers, whereas my colleagues are still supervising 8 per year.

Now that is something to shout about it! 60 Yur hearrrrdt!?

ENCORE—

What the Fuck is Really happening here?

Every society is governed by hidden laws, by unspoken but profound assumptions on the part of the people, and ours is no exception. It is up to the American writer to find out what these laws and assumptions are. In society much is given to smashing taboo without thereby managing to be liberated from them, it will be no easy matter. “The discovery of what it means to be an American” in Nobody Knows My Name (Baldwin, 1961, p. 11)

Just in case you thought I was done. That is incorrect. I still have more to say.

Said differently, it is time for the analysis. As such, I will situate critical narrative analysis (Souto-Manning, 2014b) of the autoethnographic m(ode) within the timeline of the study. Or, iv. doctoral student in music teacher education. While, circling back to the previous three sections seeking to connect and demystify, “climbing higher mountains”, as sang by Aretha Franklin (1972) in her album Amazing Grace, while also “maneuvering through the toxicity of White supremacy.” Or as written by teacher educators Cahnmann-

Taylor & Souto-Manning (2010), it is better we make sense of “ourselves in order to honor the complexity involved when different, often contrary, perspectives come into play” (p. 112). And in continuing to conjure up Jimmy (James Baldwin) (1961): “The

60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkGIZ_sVXeY

204 time has come, God knows, for us to examine ourselves, but we can only do this if we are willing to free ourselves from the myth of America and try to find out what is really happening here” [emphasis added] (p. 11).

“Becoming Dr. Deejay,” a Review

The first seven words of part four begin with me being positioned as morally- aligned with the Eurocentric moral aims of the program; they recruited me. Back then, I believed that they were employing an agentive framing of myself grounded on my surpluses. This is captured by the statement: “I was recruited to get my doctorate.” Here I followed by was recruited signals how I was being positioned as object of their actions and desire. This positioning was challenged as I affirmed myself agentively in this institution of higher education, rejected my role as the object of White supremacy ideologies and interests, and (re)affirmed my role subject of my actions, orienting to an

Afrocentric moral compass. This process was framed by my lived experiences and knowledges of “trials and triumphs of teaching and creating my own curriculum” in assets, connecting back to teaching positions in Boston Public Schools and in the

Independent School Network detailed in part three.

In this deeply Eurocentric space, “my experiences broke me down and made me forget” doctoral study was possible, denoting an immediate framing of the double- consciousness (DuBois, 1903; Robinson & Hendricks, 2018) of a Black male identity in the presence of overwhelming Whiteness in music teacher education (Bradley, 2007;

Sleeter, 2001); as someone who had been positioned as an object to adorn a White space

205 by others and as someone who refused to adorn Whiteness. Or as stated in part one, I was unsure if I wanted to re-endure “b(l)acklashes of silence, sickness, anger, oppression, depression, isolation, and loneliness” encountered while being an undergraduate and two- time graduate student in music and music education.

My encounters with Western European music theory and history evoked isolated and marginalized emotions when being “berated” and framed as “being behind the learning curve of White classmates” who had likely been studying classical music from an early age. More deficit framings of continued as vocal pedagogy professors and

Western European art song repertoire professors became “frustrated and irritated” when my “Southern accent creeped into” and merged with what opera singer Adams (2008) calls “distinctive aural qualities” (p. xi) of Italian, German, and French aimed “to conserve, preserve, maintain, and sustain Western European Classical musical traditions” as I earlier expounded. Albeit, there were mentors, such as a White undergraduate voice instructor and a graduate Black voice teacher teaching the me tropes of music performance (Fitzpatrick et al., 2014; Gardner, 2010; Hamm & Walker, 1993). Yet a neuropsychological evaluation—sought to “drastically improve” my struggles with

European foreign diction diagnosed me with an auditory and visual learning disability.

Here in the case of the evaluation and in the previous instances, I continually frame myself as an object, someone who is full of deficits lacking agency and embracing normative discourses of Western European music teacher education defining quality as

“validated by outsiders” (Souto-Manning, 2019, p. 18). Meaning all the curricular centering of Western European classical canon created emotional tolls blockading my

Southern Gospel home roots “which is what inspired me to study music in the first place”

206 as indicated in part three. Taking these frames, this autoethnography links music teacher education curricula and tests of intelligences as upholding assertions that quality is understood as assimilation to White European value systems of domination (Humphreys,

2010) and through discourses which position Whiteness as normal (Bradley, 2007;

Bradley, Golner, and Hanson, 2007b; Koza, 2008; Hess, 2015).

Yet I was critically meta-aware of the injustices enacted by a system that ignores my knowledges, invisiblized my experiences, and hypervisiblized my identity as a bad kid (Hendricks & Dorothy, 2018; Souto-Manning, 2019) or boy (Ferguson, 2001). Still within this system fraught with inconsistences, teaching became a turning point where I framed self agentively, committing to “working harder and harder to be better than anyone else” by reframing good teaching through researching the Black Diaspora which guided me back to my ancestors requiring a “break away” from traditional music teaching and learning. That being I reframed a good teacher as willingness to “fully immerse self in and center the local historical, sociocultural, and political contexts of race, space, place, and time.” To do so, I merged research, digital media (i.e. YouTube video of Our Friend Martin), music (i.e. Pop song, “The Boston Song”), students’ and my lived experiences with “conflicts and trauma of home” to problematize normative discourses while “recognizing the surpluses students afford classroom and curriculum.”

As further indicated in part three, the work here was for me to “learn though dialogue with students” as opposed to reinforcing normative discourses of good teaching as master-apprentice, “do as I say and I will correct all those bad habits and make you perform correctly” (Parkes, 2008, p. 80) often driven by standardized tests and rubrics for assessments (Payne, Burrack, Parkes, & Wesolowski, 2019).

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Be as it may, while I was positioned as the object of the the program’s actions, I repositioned myself agentively. As such, being recruited to get my doctorate became another turning point indicated in “I always dreamed of reaching the highest levels in academia…So…I acted on what I always wanted to do,” grammatically positioning self agentively as subject of actions, achieving dreams. This was informed by ancestral wisdom, invoked by the “resonance of Granny [who] always said some things come in

3s,” noting applying to Teachers College was the “third time [I had been recruited] to get my doctorate.” Resonance, as described by a return to Radano (2003) is “sound of that which has already sounded” (p. 53). He continued underscoring resonance in Afrocentric epistemologies “convey a strange, mysterious power, ranging at once across experiential opposites. It can seemingly transport its practitioners across time and space” (p. 79). Put differently, I root the canonization of good teaching in possibilities to tell of “spirits, transformation, interconnectedness, or the sacred” (Saavedra & Perez, 2012, p. 439) only to be realized by moving beyond Eurocentric frameworks (Anzaldúa, 1987; Keating,

2007). As such, I positioned myself agentively—aligning with Granny’s ancestral wisdom and claiming by position as grammatical subject of my decision to become a doctoral student.

Although aligning good teaching with Afrocentric ways of knowing, I also rationalized an Ivy League education at the recruitment of two White professors. Here I framed self as someone having “no other option but to undertake such an action” (Souto-

Manning, 2019, p. 23) in the trauma of “my brother’s murder and funeral” indicated in part four. In this frame, the squaring of my “admit[ted]…salacious relationship with

Whites” accentuated by my Lumpenproletariat (Fanon, 1961) framing agency and

208 grammatical positionality in “I can play with the power of the oppressor yielding pleasurable and transformative outcomes when done right; and dangerous, if not dire consequences in the slightest of miscalculations” (exposed in part one) can now be understood as also playing a position in becoming Dr. Deejay. Though, as forewarned, the “ultimate power of White supremacy” would become an “exercise over my life.” But how?

In summary, becoming Dr. Deejay required me to center the cultural wealth

(deficits, traumas, surpluses) of my home and students’ communities, all the while muddling through the positionality of my identity as a Black-Queer man in a White- female dominated field. What lies ahead uncloaks the “dangers” of a Black-Queer male positionality in an Ivory Tower of White supremacy.

Different as Dangerous/“Adversarial” & “Aggressive”

“The stereotypical constructions of different as dangerous” recorded Picower

(2009, p. 203) was aided by media stories and images of Black and Brown bodies as dangerous criminals who violated a sense of safety—“particularly in the context of a

Trump Presidency” as I specified in part four of the autoethnography recounting work with White pre-service student teachers Meredith and Nicholas. Picower (2009) builds from a critical race construction of bodies of color in teacher education discourse also documented by Solórzano and Yosso (2001):

The fact that Blacks, Chicanas/os, and Native Americans have been and are often still seen on television, film, and in media as “dumb,” “violent,” “lazy,” “irresponsible,” or “dirty” may often be used to rationalize their subordinate position in society…In educational settings, these stereotypes can be used to

209

justify [emphasis added] having low educational and occupational expectations for students [and teachers] of color. (p. 4)

Justifications that not only frame low professional intellectual and musical expectations of student and teachers of color; but also serve as “active tools of White supremacy”

(Picower, 2009, p. 197).

One tool essential to this analysis is Sue’s (2005) “academic protocol” (p. 102), a way of protecting complicity in the perpetuation of racist behaviors. The implication is that well-intentioned individuals view racism as extreme expressions of hatred by violent and deviant people (Alexander, 2012). Meaning well intentioned music educators

(Benedict, 2006; Hess, 2017) may engage in discriminatory behavior by using “different terminology” (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002, p. 5) while maintaining a nonprejudiced self- image (Dovidio, 2001). Put clearly, sometimes White educators (and some of color too) know better than to use overly racists terms and will use code words in order to conceal and protect their privilege and power (Bonilla-Silva, 2002; DiAngelo, 2011; Dovidio,

2001; Mills, 2003; Neville, Award, Brooks, Flores, & Bluemel, 2013; Sue, 2005; Sue et al., 2007). In the case of this autoethnographic m(ode)—two White music teacher education program directors framing me as “inexperienced,” Black and White administrators writing me as “distressed,” a Latinx financial aid officer naming me

“aggressive,” and a White music and music education professor calling me “adversarial.”

Which I grammatically and agentively framed as “code for Angry Nigger.”

Adversarial stems from adversary; meaning, an opponent in a competition.

Critical race theorists Delgado and Stefanic (2012) and Ladson-Billings and Tate (1995) position competition in education as a vessel of neo-liberalism protecting White interests.

Or the positioning of teachers of color success and achievement framed by affirmative

210 action and not conscientious hard work (Bonilla-Silva, 2002; Sue et al., 2007). In this autoethnography, competition is confirmed as agent of normative discourses of music teacher education grammatically framed in the university professor’s comment, “That’s your problem, Deejay. What I see is a young inexperienced man learning how to be a teacher educator in a very competitive program” (see also Abramo, 2017; Hendricks,

2013). Huber and Solórzano (2015) added competition is a tool of White fear of the undeserving minority who will take White jobs. Picower (2009) also noted White fear and anxiety is largely based on stereotypes from racial hierarchical understandings of the world that become breached and a sense of safety violated when a person of color asserts their subjectivity. In this way, when I grammatically and agentively framed self as subject in opposition to normative discourses of a deficit object indicated in “I too sit at the table with credentials.” And, in the Bursars office with a Latinx financial aid officer stated in “I know what you are trying to do [stereotype me] because that is what my research is,” a person of color postulating professional proficiencies can now be understood to be threatening to a White tenured professor. Here Whiteness grammatically framed me as “a young inexperienced man” only learning to be a teacher educator “for a few months,” thus positioning me as “problem” or opponent, making visible competitive hierarchical framings inherent in Eurocentric ideologies.

However, as I agentively and grammatically framed my Blackness, a

“disequilibrium” (DiAngelo, 2011, p. 58) was triggered in Whiteness functioning to restore its lost privileges and power. Meredith, a White student teacher framed her disequilibrium by insisting she was instructed to teach without directions and positioning me as an “authority… pushing personal views.” Nicholas, on the other hand repositioned

211 his power by distorting the interaction (Ladson-Billings, 1998; Neville et al., 2013) and framing himself as feeling silenced (DiAngelo, 2011; Sue, 2005) declaring that I did not

“listen” and was unable to “please.” Again, the university professor as threatened by competition can now be framed gaining equilibrium positioning power to cut-off academic scholarship being a clear positionality move to “authorize and normalize forms of domination and control” (DiAngelo, 2011, p. 65). That is to say well-intentioned educators will recycle normative discourses (Freire, 1970) of music teacher education rooted in “fear-based narratives” (Emdin, 2016) of communities of color to cultivate privilege and protect power.

Moreover DiAngelo (2011) described the quest to regain White equilibrium as self-defense tools delineated by:

A. Position the speaker as morally superior: In this case, White and

Latinx university administrators “calling security”, “a banning from a

college office analogous to suspension from the middle school

assistant principal” (part two) thereby lifts college administrators with

superiority over bodies of color and reinforcing normative discourses

of enforcement and policing over Black and Brown bodies in schools

(Alexander, 2012; Raible & Irizarry, 2010; Winn, 2018), dissertation

research “diverted to another department,” “redistribution of

scholarship” and “months without pay” leading to “food pantries and

poverty” urging us to question the “moral and ethical dilemmas

inherent” (Souto-Manning, 2019, p. 23) in Whiteness in music teacher

education;

212

B. Blame others with less social power for their discomfort: Tenured

university professor positioning doctoral student identity as “problem”

or students of color “in the back of the room eating Doritos” as the

source for students of color not knowing Eurocentric music theory or

being “inexperienced,” Financial Aid Administrator framing of the

office encounter indicated in “You saying ‘you are not the one’ is the

problem and that is why I am calling security;”

C. Reinscribe White racial imagery/perspectives as universal: White

student teachers framing students of color being “hard” to teach, and

my Black-queer male identity positioned as “adversarial” and

“aggressive,” and it would not be redundant to say again, “calling

security” on a Black student connecting to critical race theory’s

Whiteness and property status, right to removal (Ladson-Billings &

Tate, 1995; Harris, 1993);

D. Demand more social resources “such as time and attention” (p. 64)

to cope with White discomfort: As cited in the November 2017

email, the university professor demanding the essentiality of “a

conversation next week” following two hours of previous meetings

framed as “suffocat[ing];” Financial Aid Officer asking to “talk in my

office;” or “took seven weeks to apologize and acknowledge” for

security called on a Black student.

This means when situations where power hierarchies are muddled, well-intentioned

White educators may position self within a presumably superior collective of White

213 narratives to collude around racialized stereotypes as escape from examining and owning normative discourses of power and privilege (Picower, 2009; DiAngelo, 2011).

“The actual direction of danger that exists between Whites and others” wrote

DiAngelo (2011):

becomes profoundly trivialized when Whites claim they don’t feel safe or under attack when in the rare situation of merely talking about race with people of color. The use of this discourse illustrates how fragile and ill-equipped most White people are to confront racial tensions, and their subsequent projection of this tension onto people of color. (p. 65)

Differentiated differently to dovetail the next analysis, professors positioning their moral superiority to call campus security breathes space to expand and uncloak “emotional and critical experiences” (Souto-Manning, 2019, p. 14) constructing normative discourses in music teacher education. Or, what fragility do documents hold from “an institution re- committing to diversity” when squaring a student in “distress” protesting injustices?

“Documents of This Kind,” A Turning Point

To replay, a cohort of diverse students agentively disconnected from framed normative discourses in our music and music education program instantiated by the

Department of Arts & Humanities’ stipend support for students to attend conferences, hall decorations (i.e. photos of past professors) and curriculum as mirrors to Whiteness, and the doctoral Aural Exam centered in Western European classical epistemologies and ontologies. We also grammatically framed (our)selves to act by gaining two meetings— albeit it “contentious”—indicated in “we are pleased to announce a commitment by the faculty to revise the exam” and increased support for conference attendance. We are

214 agentively frames individual and collective subjectivity to survive contention or engage conflict (Souto-Manning, 2014) to protest (a) declining culture of respect for students of color and Jewish students, (b) curriculum and certification exams dominated by Western

European classical ideologies, (c) irregularities in student (even some White ones) funding, and (c) advocation for the hiring of faculty of color with experience in urban education. Here DiAngelo (2011) again provides an assist framing the all-White music and music education faculty demand for “more social resources such as time… to cope with White discomfort” (p. 64) stated in part four of the autoethnography,

nearly six semesters of stress laid upon my shoulders and none of the administrators or faculty kept their word to meet with students regarding our concerns…This was the deafening silence that took me too the halls protesting….on three separate occasions—I sat outside of music and music education faculty offices playing J. Cole, Nipsy Hussle, Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, and Toni Morrison from my laptop speakers…Yet it was on the third protest in October the all-White music and music education faulty called security on me; and, then took seven weeks to apologize and acknowledge the situation should have been handled through dialogue and collaboration.

Although I justify the accumulation of stressors including “sitting in an apartment where shitty water tickles from my kitchen ceiling,” when I frame my action to protest I also aligned my Lumpenproletariat (Fanon, 1961) to speak up and out while also framing Hip-

Hop as an agent to push back against the Western European classical canon. Here I frame self as someone who “had no other option but to undertake such action” (Souto-Manning,

2019, p. 23) positioned by “the deafening silence” of faculty and administrators. Or, as

Radano (2003) framed, White silence, “the volume of noise was perhaps so great…it contains the power of self-protection” (p. 93). He pressed on connecting back to colonialism:

[W]hite colonist in North America sought to deny these expressions a musical significance, such expressions would conflict not only with modern racial

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thinking but also with the very dangerous undertaking of enslaving a population thought to be less human. In this respect, the silence among [W]hites was understandable. (p. 93)

I concur. However, this autoethnographic m(ode) takes place 401 years after the first

Africans became enslaved in the United States; and, a 21st century context where Hip

Hop and Rap music is overwhelmingly purchased by White youth (Morris, 2014).

Meaning my frame of disregarding that faculty as “threatened” by Hip Hop music coming “from my laptop speakers” is grammatically enunciated in “only if I can yell the

WHITE SUPREMACY IS THESE WALLS IS LOUD TOO” when security officers request that I stop the music. I plus can frames agency to yell out against White supremacy serving as a turning point positioning my Black-Queer male identity in assets.

“As a strategy for affirming racial supremacy” Radano (2003) goes on “[W]hite silence serves as an antiwriting that asserted European Americans’ special authority against the putative noise of Negro inhumanity” (p. 93). An inhumanity I experienced as a

“murdered spirit,” framed by the White silence over seven weeks before an apology. This recapitulation and analysis then informs Whiteness as agent of normative discourses in music teacher education through positioning silence to save emotional space (i.e. White feelings) protecting physical place (i.e. offices and hallways) rooted in colonial vestiges of race and property status entanglements in schools and schooling.

Define Themselves

“As is the way with documents of this kind” penned Baldwin (1961), “[they] first spoke of the great importance of the cultural inventory here begun in relation to the various [B]lack cultures which had been systematically misunderstood, underestimated,

216 sometimes destroyed” (p. 50). As too did the email to music students authored by administrators (included in part four of my autoethnography), “re-affirming” cultural diversity stated in the first line,

Baldwin proceeds to describe how institutional documents particularly surrounding race are carefully worded summarizing a crisis and the need for re-examination of the contributing factors affirming the rights of all people “to benefit from the instruction and education which would be afforded them within this framework [emphasis added]” (p.

50). Again, TC letter of the security-calling incident aligns with Baldwin’s framing:

As you know there was an incident last month that caused distress and, ultimately, has encouraged a dialogue on how we can work toward becoming a better, more inclusive academic community. On October 1, 2019 one of our Black male doctoral students staged a protest over his concerns about the lack of diverse perspectives within the Music Education program…Faculty from the program…called Public Safety. We, as well as other members of our community, have been concerned about this choice, given the national climate around law enforcement’s treatment of individuals, particularly of Black and Brown men…Nonetheless, the faculty involved have acknowledged that this situation should have been handled through dialogue and collaboration.

Here the institution’s crisis is framed by “one of our Black male doctoral students staged a protest over his concerns about the lack of diverse perspectives within the Music

Education program.” This triggered “faculty from the program” to call security. The need to reexamination becomes apparent indicated by “We, as well as other members of our community, have been concerned about this choice, given the national climate around law enforcement’s treatment of individuals, particularly of Black and Brown men.” Thus,

217 the institution acknowledges dialogue and collaboration as two ways to affirm a person’s rights and “work toward becoming a better more inclusive academic community.”

“These letters though” Baldwin (1961) warned in “Prince and Power” (Nobody

Knows My Name) are a “declaration of love—for the culture, European, which had been of such importance in the history of mankind” (p. 51). Baldwin writes that such documents can create a keen sense within Black people igniting the necessity for

“[B]lack men to make the effort to define themselves” (p. 51). Because working within these “shitty” frameworks do harm to us.

So, in that effort to find myself, “I need to own my Masters” or “ancestors” by doing what “I always do: seek a higher level of consciousness” as prayed in the closing of part four, grammatically framing self as subject positioning cultural wealth (deficits, traumas, surpluses) and ancestral, creative, and intellectual agency as “transformative power…to maneuver through the toxicity of White supremacy.”

TURNING POINT

That being under all the pressure of European discourses of nobody knowing my name:

“Black male,” “problem,” “inexperienced,” “adversarial,” and “aggressive,” a new North

American Negro has “broke” through and defined himself: “I AM DEEJAY

ROBINSON. Google me.”

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Connections to Research Question

Chapter four best answers question three, what are the roles of my identity, cultural values, and community and familial experiences in music teacher education?

How are do these interact with social structures in place? The autoethnographic m(ode) and analysis revealed four roles of my Black-Queer male identity, cultural values, and community and familial experiences: (a) identity to conjure (Manigualt-Bryant &

Manigualt-Bryant, 2016; Hurston, 1931, 1935) and connect with ancestral and spiritual ways of knowing of Afrocentric epistemologies, (b) identity to play with power, (c) identity to make sense of self in community seeking dialogical interactions (sometimes through conflict), and (d) identity to grow roots in community as knowledge of self and others to yell out against White supremacy. How do these interact with social structures in place? If and when prescribing to the objectification of student knowledge and lived and experiences, then interactions with social structures in place will remain at status quo until a trigger arrives to jolt change in consciousness carried into practice, indicated in part three. Individual interaction as agent to speak up and out to social structures in place can potentially be dire and/or deafening. Better to collectively organize to interact with social structures, as in part four. The result will be a private but public transformation of an individual combat collectively fought for justice and equity while moving through the toxicity of White supremacy.

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Summary

Chapter IV was an autoethnographic (m)ode, or unique singing narrative composition where the author is the subject squaring his Black-Queer male identity and cultural wealth interlocked with problems and promises surrounding self in schools and schooling. In the analysis we learned agentive tools to position Whiteness as superior while framing bodies of color in deficits and putting their lives in danger. Here tools of blame, silence, removal and demand for resources blockade Black brilliance and simultaneously insolates White supremacy reinforcing normative discourses. Yet under all the pressures new prince(ss)’s project precious positionality preaching preeminent pedagogies of prosperity for peoples of color.

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Chapter V

COMPOSITE STORIES OF PUBLIC COLLEGE NEW YORK CITY

Intro—

Chapter five captures and examines setting, lived experiences, and narratives of a

Black-Queer doctoral student and teacher educator—in dialogue with majority Latinx preservice early childhood and elementary students in his music teacher education course (MUSIC 3000) at PCNYC. Through composite stories (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002) or scenes and episodes, we inquire into how curricula stories are constructed as mirrors and windows (Bishop, 1990) woven to reveal the ways in which dominant theories and ideologies affect the discourses and identities of soon-to-be teachers—even some White ones—pointing toward the need for teaching students and educators of color to analyze and name injustices documented within life histories. This is so in order frame oppressive encounters reclaiming individual and collective humanity.

The chapter is collectively composed of five sections (Imperfectly Perfect Student

Teachers; PCNYC; A Thing (Conflict) I Did Not Expect; Realties of Teaching (Episode

1): Where is the Conflict?; and, Realties of Teaching (Episode 2): What will we do?) individually constructed by merging data from the research site (i.e. course syllabus, lesson plans, rap sheet transcriptions of audio recorded weekly classes, personal communication, group work artifacts, and student feedback and evaluation responses), existing literature on the topics (i.e. assigned MUSIC 3000 course readings, research

221 literature from chapter two), professional experiences (i.e. lived experiences encountered while being practitioners at PCNYC), and personal experiences (i.e. lived experiences encountered at home and in the community outside of the college). I first reviewed 17 weeks of Rap Sheets using a critical lens searching for turning points in dialogue where complexities of race, gender, and class experiences were most salient. In shifting through the data, I began to draw connections with previous readings relevant to the themes of the course gained from dialogical interactions. Once hot points (Cahnmann-Taylor et al.,

2009) were identified, I then re-read transcribed audio recordings on the rap sheet as I re- listened to the voices of majority women of color sharing stories and zooming in and out as we dialogically problematized injustices in schools and society. For us, YouTube video clips, news articles, and Hip-Hop music helped break into blockades and challenged us to look more deeply into the construction of music in schools and society uplifting these majority women of colors “triumphant voices of experiences” (Souto-

Manning, 2019, p. 34). In this way, I too shared my own story (autoethnography from chapter four) invocating the polyphonic (Allsup, 2017) voices of ancestors, family, friends, and colleagues to demystify how I too, learned to teach.

Sixteen composite characters (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002)—representative of the twenty-four MUSIC 3000 students—were created once data was reviewed, compiled, and analyzed enabling me to situate participants within the surroundings of the school while laying bare findings within our course. To lay bare findings, I attempted to get the characters to talk. Or, the dialogue spoken by composite characters is chronologically rendered and emerged from our own in real time class discussions. That being as

Seidman (2013) advocated, “little to no text changes” (p. 122) where made when

222 examining semantics. Next, generative themes (e.g., money in education) were identified from what participants deemed critical garnered from transcriptions of class interactions and student responses in weekly feedback and evaluations of my teaching practices. Here returning to student feedback and evaluations completed at the end of each class sought to “acknowledge what each participant knows, working together to learn from and with each other, moving beyond the traditional power structures in search of new and better ways to meet the needs of all learners” (Laboskey,

2004, p. 838). Following initial analysis of generative themes was completed and scenes and episodes identified, I met with the dissertation team to directly align themes with larger epistemological and ontological foundations of the field (Hughes & Pennington,

2007) as a means to strengthen assemblage and bolster trustworthiness and validity of the data.

Lastly, I employed critical narrative analysis (Souto-Manning, 2014b) seeking to identify displays of grammatical and framing agency (or lack thereof) within specified composite scenes and episodes. For example, grammatical agency is linguistically actualized by use of subject plus active verb (Souto-Manning, 2014b); as in, “I am from the hood,” I plus am is used to indicate grammatical agency. Similarly, framing agency is where subject aligns with normative discourses. For example, “I find this a difficult situation; because, every teacher has their own way in their classrooms.” I is used to frame the difficulty of individuals operating in isolation aligning with normative morals.

Analysis was then connected back to research questions and analyses summarized in the outro.

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To review, the following ode, scene, and two episodes aim to critically uncloak ideas and experiences “while it tries to use the elements of critical race theory”

(Solórzano & Yosso, 2002, p. 36) to tell stories of lived experiences challenging normative discourses and opening new windows into the multiple realities of learning to teach. It is not fictional storytelling (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002); or, fake news. Instead these composite characters are “grounded in real-life experiences and actual empirical data and are contextualized in social situations that are also grounded in real life, not fiction” (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002, p. 36).

Pseudonym Race/Ethnicity Undergraduate Minor to (major) Status Elementary and Early Childhood Education Anita Afro-Latina Junior Undeclared Carol Latina Junior Undeclared Yesenia Afro-Latina Sophomore Science Dimple Southeast Asian Junior English Julie White Freshman Undeclared Kate White Senior Psychology Kiyoko Asian Sophomore History Maggie White Sophomore Art Maria Afro-Latina Sophomore Undeclared Olivia Greek (White) Sophomore Undeclared Pilar Latina Junior Accounting Rob Afro-Latino Senior Theatre Roxy Latina Senior Psychology Sharon Afro-Caribbean Junior Psychology Sneah Southeast Asian Senior English Ying Asian Sophomore Undeclared Table 5.1 MUSIC 3000 Composite Characters’ Racial Identity, Undergraduate Status, Minor Interest

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Ode:

Imperfectly Perfect

Student Teachers of MUSIC 3000

Seventeen Tuesday mornings from August to December, 9am-12pm, A college lecture hall Or is it a concert hall? transforms into a vibrant elementary classroom.

Twelve rectangle tables once arranged in U around the grand piano are grouped four—teams, with neon green, pink, purple, and orange papers, Crayola markers, sticky notes, and instruments sprinkled about. One day there was children’s books all about musicians of color displayed on window sills And perched in nooks too. We read all of them.

There is always music in the air: Fifth Harmony “Gravels to Tempo” of Black Eyed Peas, Cranberries, mixture making My Chemical Romance “A Little too Much.” “Famous Last Words.” “Ex” “Playing Games” with Summer Walkers “Fireflies” in “Owl City.” “Lovely” but “Where is the love”? Queen. “Daughters” with a “Crooked Smile”? We are “Everybody’s Something” “Under pressure”? In our “Dreams”—“Nuvole Bianche” Lauper said, “Girls just wanna have fun”! “Vivir mi vida”! “The Greatest.” No matter what, will you be my “One Call Away”?

But the music is ours. Our professor created this poem; and, our play— list from our name tags, notes in his journal, comments from our weekly feedback and evaluation forms, transcriptions of audio recordings of classroom interactions, and the songs and stories written in our end-of-unit narrative papers. That is, we wrote about childhood memories of music in and out of school.

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And, made music to make sense of our experiences— merging experiences with research to get a taste of what it means to be a teacher.

The music playing over the speakers welcomes us. Conceals us during very raw, deep, in-depth, eye-opening small group discussions. Music; and, dialogue are the conduits we employ to learn a lot about the viewpoints and perspectives of the people in our class

The music we composed, and played, alone, and with others in groups Surprised us.

Scared us. Made us nervous.

And, Frustrated me! Because, I have no musical creativity. No rubrics. Few rules, No guidelines galore, A lack of standardization, I do abhor.

When I registered for this course, I thought it would be, quiet and easy A for me. I’ve studied classical piano since I was 5. Clarinet in band and sang in the choir stand. But, little did I know that traditional structures must go. And music can be influential in the process of individuality. while grounded in community.

But who are we? This MUSIC 3000 community?

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Numerically. 2 freshmen, 7 sophomores, 10 juniors, and 5 seniors make 24 students. Twenty-three of us women.

Ethnically and/or Racially. Latinx, nine Asian, four and Southeast Asian, two. Three from the Middle East, plus 3 equals 6 for White. None of the students are Black. But, our professor is Black and queer, just like three of us, dear.

Generally, Accounting and Art we identified as minors. History, Psychology, and Sociology, English Theatre, and 8 exploratory. But early childhood and elementary, Educators is what we aim to be.

What about in school and society? We are always first to speak. “Practice wait time” we get on repeat. Ask of us tough questions though, and our pitch goes dimmer. It’s only because our minds need time to glimmer.

Healthy habits ground us. Running and working out. Don’t be surprised if we come to class, with breasts displayed about.

My background in dance and musical theatre, makes me very confident.

It’s obvious that few have talent “I am not creative”— When I hear that iterative voice

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I stay forever jaded.

Some of us are really shy. Trying our best on little rest.

Forgive me, I may find it hard to relate, when dealing with my current fate. I had to break off a toxic engagement one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make. So please forgive me for my attendance, I just bid my lover good riddance. I feel every sad and scared at what the future holds, but I look back on other situations where I thought things wouldn’t get better and they did get better. So, I am holding out hope that I can be strong and overcome just like I did back then.

My parents are splitting up. I have to move in with my dad. We don’t know where to go, yet.

Professor, Professor Hear me too, I know that I can talk to you. You see and care for all your students, Which makes this much easier to do. I am expecting, and didn’t know. Professor, be patient, we need space to grow.

My mother was very strict with me growing up and a bit overbearing, at times. I resent the way she was with me because she was being both mother and father figure. But, I as I grew older, I understand her actions, Occasionally.

My father yells, “What are you going to do with your life?” This proves women are expected to be more serious. and focused on what they want for their life. The only thing society expects is for women to stay a wife.

My parents are more strict with me than they are with my brother. My brother is trusted to stay out late.

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Since I am female, they worry that something is more likely to happen to me. Giving females these norms to live up to makes it harder for the female to be herself. We already struggle to show our self because we fear rejection.

Though everyone has their own insecurities, men don’t face the same amount of backlash and judgements that women have.

Usually, I don’t speak much in class. In present day 2019 saying you are of Hispanic heritage is something you think twice of before speaking. So, I stay quiet.

I left and came to this country, I am in charge of my family. To give them what we need to live, Decently. Working hard and worrying every day, to keep us away, from the poverty that had oppressed us.

Now, I know this situation is very serious. The discrimination. It reminds me of a few years ago when there were all those terrorists attacks around the world, which in return brought a lot of hate to Muslims. I knew that I was not, this dangerous and terrible person. Like some people might think I am, Because, I am Muslim.

No one should be judged for something as superficial as that. Music has the ability to empower and liberate people from societal pressures that stem from very cruel and dark parts of humanity, And to take that darkness to create light for all to see.

If different students come together and begin to construct different narratives; then the oppressed children’s voices will be heard and not marginalized.

This will be my only class, For reasons I cannot say. But while I’m here I thought that I would say, I feel like that will never happen.

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This is such a capitalist society. They don’t give a shit about what the fuck the kids feel. It’s all about the money at the end of the day. But us as teachers, We got to make the change at least with our students, you know.

Like even one class can change the world as cheesy as that sounds. It keeps spreading like a virus.

But there are things that I do not experience, as a White woman. I never experienced discrimination where I felt left out in school or having to worry about the police. Those things are not so common for me. It’s something people of color have to experience on a daily basis.

As a White woman, It personally took me so long to understand that so many racist people simply stayed racist because they didn’t care, didn’t recognize respecting someone else for their skin color. And, feeding into ignorance by believing that someone doesn’t deserve to be treated with respect for looking a certain way.

I might experience some nasty looks when speaking Spanish to my mom. People look at me and they think I’m White. They do not know that I speak Spanish and that surprises them.

I am Latina from Colombia. And, I have never experienced discrimination here. When I first came to this class, I thought I was going to study, Nursery rhymes and happy songs and activities of warm and fuzzies. Like sit in a circle and play instruments: recorder, guitar, drums, and piano. Learn to read music. History of music. Different music genres. Sing “Happy Birthday” Are we ever going to learn about classical music? Lean how to write my own song? I didn’t expect to talk about racism Oppression. The readings are long. It’s uncomfortable.

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It’s not what I signed up for. I want my money back.

The method of blind denial is not efficient in solving problems and keeps the person trapped under pressure.

Traditions in schools, home, and society, have taught and shaped how we be, forcing us to do things we don’t want to.

But when I read that narratives told in schools not only tells the story, but controls the way they story is perceived, The myths and lies I told and believed of myself seemed kin to disease.

Like books resemble people who write them, the same could be said about music: Both are a process of interchange between the artist and listener Both cause the reader or listener to establish an emotional appeal Therefore, music can be a mirror or window to reveal possibilities for people to gain knowledge about others.

I received lyrics once, like thousands of hugs and lessons. Words for me to look at the world, and justify myself. The theme of the whole song tells me to keep on persevering, even when a challenge approaches, while at the same time acknowledging self-power, in aspects of my life where I had been lacking it. Which ultimately shaped me into a person that I am proud of.

I like this idea of destiny. But as women— we are in control! Music can help us and our students cope, with issues we may or may not feel comfortable addressing to an adult. We all need ways to heal.

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Music brings out the best sides of us. It helps us understand multiple realities. Music gets us through the rough patches in life. Without music, I would probably go crazy. Crazy with all my emotions and thoughts running in my head.

Music; helped me, kinda sort a, get over this break-up, as I cried in bed. But kinda sort a is better than nothing.

Thus the way we perceive the world is also a reflection of the lives we fantasize for ourselves. Meaning as our perception of the world changes, So, too does our goals and aspirations. This contributes to a change in narrative— The way you view and depict yourself to the world can change each and every day.

Our point is, the least you can do is be there for someone and just listen. It allows students to learn the uniqueness of being unapologetically themselves, to become one of the people in the song, to love the parts of them that don’t fit with the societal tradition, so, they won’t have to worry about being bullied; gives them more freedom to discover and play their own music, as liberation from not being victims of their own emotional anger.

When we see selves and students, When we allow students to see themselves and be represented, it expands with more detail what it means to know about an experience from the outside. This helps eliminate the stereotypes of marginalized communities. It creates a sense of liberation, because we realize that we are not just compacted to fit a stereotype or universal norm, but that we are greater than what society makes of us. We know and feel that with knowledge and power, We will do greater things.

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But to make changes you need to crash through multiple walls before reaching the other side. It’s a long painful process. It’s the only way society changes.

This responsibility falls on the shoulders of teachers and educators Because changes starts with younger generations.

Like J. Cole, instead of letting society keep him down for something he couldn’t control, he came back from it every time. “But like the sun you know /I found my way back round.” He plays with words in the line: He uses round instead of using a-round. Since the sun is round. Meaning he is complete. We are complete. Instead of “I” or “me”. Shows that he is aware and being inclusive of his audience… Because, we are all imperfectly perfect. He knows that women don’t just do all these things for themselves, we do it for others. I found this relatable in every way Because, I’m a woman and did all the things he listed.

Imperfectly perfect. Brilliant! Brilliant students! That is what we strive to be. Because, Imperfectly perfect implicates you and me.

All of us are experts in our own unique ways. One thing I hope you understand, Is we peoples of color are definitely here to stay!

Look around if you please. Do you see what I behold? A gorgeous group of women; And one guy, My god he’s bold!

I am professor in title only.

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Cause, all you women own me. Just like mis abuelas, mi madre, y tias. So, teach me what it means to be you. And in return I’ll, reciprocate too.

Complicate, Interrogate, and Emancipate your mind. Is all I’ll ever ask of you. I’m sure in time you’ll find.

I know it’s going to be hard at first, to try many things anew. Just know I already love you, And guarantee we’ll make it through! So please sit back for the ride, Or if you wish, take a dive; Shit, I’ll even let you drive!

I did say shit, Purposefully. Because it means something to me. Never mind, I digress. Let me finish with the rest.

Teachers whom I adore: You are learning more of me, and I soo much of you. It’s time we turn a critical eye to our fields of study too.

Now, Let our histories be the feature, Class readings, assignments, and dialogue to probe deeper, Music as our preacher, and Ancestors our keeper, To bring about the changes need in schools and society today.

If you wit me say, Let’s play.

Let’s play.

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Public College New York City

“Education is inherently an ethical and political act.” -Michael Apple (inscribed to the left of the entrance on the education building)

“…today we had some punk kid pull the fire alarm…There are cameras on premises as of yesterday…Obviously, be careful while in the building-lock doors and pay attention when here at odd hours.” (Personal Communication, 2017 July)

“The government takes our hard-earned money and puts it towards things we don’t have a choice in” (MUSIC 3000 student)

PCNYC is a primarily-Hispanic serving institution tucked away in a still and quiet borough of New York City. So quiet that only the loud laughter of the White and Asian high school students can be heard over earbuds on the bus. And, so still that the breathless brown body of Eric Gardner suffocates the air so that the brown water in the fens under the overpass barely ripples in the wind. The boroughs is 30% Asian, 28%

Latinx, 20% Black, and 16% White (Elsen-Rooney, 2020). A 26-minute walk from the subway to campus reveals a cross section of hijabs, hoodies, and kippahs. Numerous dentists’ offices, nails salons, kosher bagel, grocery and wines stores soon recede to marble mansions. The Meadows community of homogenous multi-layer townhomes eventually plateaus to sprawling single floor apartments—tan bricked with black and white shutters—replicas of the taller yet slimmer proceeding dwellings.

An article in the local newspaper detailed the diversity of the community as reported in a New York Department of Education grant. The grant sought to diversify the districts middle schools—meaning the community is segregated. Similar to most major cities in the United States, this borough has people of color concentrated in the southern part with closer proximations to Whiteness in the north. For example, 62% of students at

235 a middle school near PCNYC are White (Elsen-Rooney, 2020). Here indicates the overrepresentation White students and families to the demographic of the community and the college. Or, a significant suffocation of people of color. Sneah, a Muslim female

MUSIC 3000 student feels it too.

Sneha: Yeah, I just sense some type of suffocation because people are not able to be treated in the color they were born in. I feel like Black people have to pretend to be someone else. And even when they do, they are violated. They just wanted to live in their own skin color and try not to pretend to be something else.

Deejay: Are you saying that school can be suffocating?

Sneah: Mmmhmmm. Sometimes. Just because you are a different color doesn’t mean that you have to be suffocated just because you were born that way. I don’t believe in that. That was I sensed.

Deejay: I am a Black-Queer male, so I can relate to it. There are only 2 men in this class. So, you all will have to teach me. Because I will never know what it is like to be in a woman’s body. Ever. So, begin to think about your own experiences. ((looking at Kate, whom I assume is a White student at the group)) Even as a White woman ((inquisitively stated)) White? ((Kate nods, yes)) You are the most demographic within this field. But there was an election and senate trial that showed different treatment for White women. So bring your own experiences to this work as well.

The campus quad and the city skyline can be obscured by a 7 o’clock morning mist later revealing an illuminating story of diverse bodies playing frisbee or registering students to vote, shaking hands and studying, eyeing one another, throwing shade and sipping tea, speaking approximately 50 languages (mostly English), singing to music in their ears (or not). Sizzling aromas of pernil y chorizo, tamales, and halal stations often greet you at the security booth. Quotations from Apple, bell hooks, and Freire mark buildings. Professors can be seen walking together in khakis, sweater vests, bow ties and

236 blazers. Skirts and blouses; yoga pants and sweaters dresses and pearls. Staff; however, are visible by the blue uniforms of the porters and green of the gardeners.

PCNYC’s school of music (SOM) bears the name of a famous White-American composer born in a different borough of the city. The walls of the two-storied building hangs with pictures of wealthy White patrons who paid for auditoriums, concert halls, and practice rooms indicated by plaques adorning doors. Paintings of Western European classical composers, playbills and posters of past Metropolitan Opera performances, and signed copies of scores can be found plated, on plaster, or perched behind glass. Even attention in the classroom is centered toward a Black baby grand piano. However, there is no signs carving the names, works, or artifacts of the mad scientist inventors of Hip-Hop music and culture birthed and cultivated blocks away. The only graffiti I noticed was on the stalls in the male bathroom advertising falacio (with a number to call attached) and a debate (in Chinese with translation) as to what “I’ll catch you up later” means. Or, to echo a remix of an earlier refrain: something in the walls of this SOM is loud too. A quote from Kate’s (White and a trained classical musician) narrative paper helps to situate normative expectations of a SOM education course:

I thought this class was going to be an easy A for me because of my heavy background in music. I started playing piano at 5 years old and have a private piano studio. Although I feel I do not know how to format music for a classroom setting. Anyway, I played elaborate classical pieces every year at various recitals. I learned the clarinet in elementary school and joined my elementary, middle, and high school band as well as my church band. I learned music theory and love to sing alto and other harmony parts. Basically, I just figured this course would combine all the knowledge I already spent years perfecting, generalize it, and teach me how to teach music to elementary grade children. However, this class was so much more than that. The course went beyond music. It broke down the traditional classroom structure and rebuilt it in a way that enlightens the minds of teachers and students alike.

Maria, Latinx sophomore, also explained:

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Coming to the music building made me nervous and excited. I had been in the building before and it was mostly White people. Due to that, I became nervous because I had never been in a classroom where the majority of the students are from one race and background. I did not want to feel out of place and judged from others because I did not know much about music. And, was even more anxious about the professor and what he would be thinking of me. I felt worse once I stepped inside the classroom because I did not know anybody.

As the class began the professor introduced himself. Right way I felt a sense of relief in seeing that it was someone like me. In that instance my face changed and turned into a smile. More students began to come in and once again, to my surprise, it was a diverse group of students who wanted to be teachers—future teachers that looked like me.

Dimple, a junior and Southeast Asian:

Before this course I was genuinely nervous too…I was so confused when I found out a music course was a requirement for an education degree. I really wanted to know why it was relevant to the major. But, when I walked into the class I became very intrigued. I saw the name tag and bingo activity on the table and that really set the climate of the classroom. Things quickly went from being panicked and nerve wrecking to calm and fun. This opened the door for more interaction and genuine conversation. Now I was really curious to know exactly how music ties into education.

And a Chinese immigrant, Ying:

This was not at all what I thought it would be. I have not taken a music class before. I thought I would be learning to play an instrument and writing music. Thus, I always thought it couldn’t be that hard to be a music teacher. I would just get all the children to sing and learn an instrument or two. In my first few classes I realized it was actually a lot harder than I thought. I also did not think that you could teach history through music or include it daily in school curriculum. I realized my thinking was completely wrong. Teaching is tougher than it looks. I learned things I did not expect to.

These first excerpts from Ying, Dimple, Maria, and Kate’s narrative papers capture the representative emotional and educational dimensions framing the onset of the music teacher education course for non-majors. First, Dimple, Maria, and Sneah did not indicate prior years of music study; thus, I chose to honor their representative voices by beginning analysis with their ideas noting the music teacher education course is for non-

238 music majors. All three women used grammatical and framing agency to subjectively situate the teacher education course, first conjured by Sneah, “I sense some type of suffocation because people are not able to be treated in the color they were born in.”

Dimple adds agentively framing her subjectivity, “I was genuinely nervous…excited…panicked”, and Maria’s “I…was really anxious…intrigued…feel out of place and judged.” The use I followed was show subjects engaged in confluxes of emotions framing initial mindset.

Moreover, the women’s grammatical framing of emotions is also connected to introductory framings of the educational site; in which, teachers frame self as objects. For example, Maria, a Latina felt out of place and judged because the SOM “…it was mostly

White people… I had never been in a classroom where the majority of the students are from one race and background.” (also unveiled by DeLorenzo & Silverman, 2016;

Fitzpatrick et al., 2014). In fact, she “felt worse” once she stepped inside the classroom

“because I did not know anybody” further intensifying Maria’s anxious and nervous feelings to the White framing of the classroom. Sneah also felt “violation” as a result of a contrasting Black frame to the expected overrepresentation of White spaces. In this way,

Maria and Sneah agentively frame Whiteness making them “out of place” objects in violation of losing breath. Ying an Asian immigrant also expressed a similar disconnect.

Her emotional frame of confusion was contributed to the educational relevancy of a required music course for an education degree, “I also did not think that you could teach history through music or include it daily in school curriculum.” She too justified confluences of emotions at the onset of the music teacher education course framed by

239 prior experiences, expectations, and exposure to larger discourses of the landscape of music education in schools and schooling.

Not only do the initial excerpts frame emotional and educational building blocks of Whiteness for those with little to no prior training in music, Kate’s grammatical and framing agency offers insights for students with a “heavy background in music.” Kate shares grammatical agency recalling years of previous exposure and experience with classical music through studying theory, taking and teaching piano lessons, and performing in church and school ensembles, “I thought this class was going to be an easy

A for me because of my heavy background in music.” Kate’s fifteen years or more of engagement with “elaborate classical pieces” resulted in an initial agentive framing of music courses as combining, generalizing, and perfecting pervious knowledge she developed in elementary, middle, and high school music studios and classes. As stated by

Kate: “I just figured this course would combine all the knowledge I already spent years perfecting, generalize it, and teach me how to teach music to elementary grade children.”

Even as a White classically trained musician, Kate also positions herself as an object of

Whiteness in music teacher education courses, “I do not know how to format music for a classroom setting.” And Ying for deeper context, “I thought I would be learning to play an instrument and writing music…get all the children to sing and learn an instrument or two.” Taken together with the emotional and educational framings of the others, we can now begin to weave a normative discourse of Eurocentric music teacher education as

Masters cementing “teacher-proof materials” (Freire, 1998, p. 8).

Freire (1998) described how a teacher-directed approach aims to “disseminate the ideology of ideological death” (p. 14), pretending to be apolitical all while upholding

240 racism and entangled inequities. To which music teacher educator Parkes (2008) denoted

“do as I say and I will correct all those bad habits and make you perform correctly” (p.

80). Kate grammatically frames these discourses in her comment “teach me how to teach elementary children” and Ying’s “it couldn’t be that hard to be a music teacher.” As

Freire (1998) warned traditional master-apprentice structures block “faith in the possibility that teachers can know and can also create” (p. 8). Yet MUSIC 3000 was framed differently. Kate, noted the course “went beyond music. It broke down the traditional classroom structure.” Seeing a professor of the same skin color was an agentive and grammatical turning point for Maria: “Right way I felt a sense of relief in seeing that it was someone like me… my face changed and turned into a smile.” Dimple indicated her agentive framing when “[P]anicked and nerve wrecking” feelings abated to

“calm and fun” upon seeing name tags and bingo on the tables, grammatically exemplified in: “Now I was really curious to know exactly how music ties into education.” Once Ying found connects to music and education, she agentively and grammatically framed MUSIC 3000 as requiring more from her: “Teaching is tougher than it looks. I learned things I did not expect to.” Maria, too, found “surprise in the diverse group of students who wanted to be teachers—future teachers that looked like

[her].” Here turning points came when the women encountered visual (e.g., classroom demographics and setup) and curricula (e.g., reconnecting music to education) shifts that grammatically changed initial framings of physical place and emotional space (Emdin,

2016). That being, good teaching welcomes students allowing for the “inclusion of the emotional in the process of teacher development; the whole of the individual is thereby

241 incorporated and addressed, as it should be. Another realm commonly believed to include both feeling and cognition is that of the arts” (LaBoskey, 2004, p. 863).

These women’s framings help construct traditional music education courses as agents of Whiteness through prerequisites and pedagogical prescriptions bifurcating curricula, simplifying practice, and sometimes separate from students’ racialized lived experience(s). Kate, Maria, Ying, and Dimple’s excerpts, as representative of MUSIC

3000, also offer turning points into the emotional and educational framings encountered when non-music majors initially move through normative Eurocentric frames of music education classes. But how did we make sense of our feelings and cognition as we delved deeper into the art(s) of music and teaching?

Scene: A Thing (Conflict) I Did Not Expect

After Labor Day weekend. Third week, beginning of third class. The previous week students were discussing the concept of curricula and children’s books being mirror or window (Bishop, 1990; Tschida, et al., 2014) to students’ lived experiences. We also read McCarthy’s (2007) article on narratives and inquiry as a way to make sense of the ways music teaching and learning is as a discursive practice rooted in individual and collective histories. Next, we applied the theoretical readings and research to Baldwin’s (1963) Sonny’s Blues, a fictional narrative of a college-aged Black man from Harlem dealing with loss, drug addiction, family history, and the role of music and education in his life. We then juxtaposed Lauryn Hill (1996) “Every Ghetto, Every City” as the music text to deconstruct, analyze, and relate back to readings. The point here was to focus on Hill’s use of multiple layered beats (ostinato) and lyrics (text) to weave her musical narrative (song) of home. This pedagogical scaffold served to foreshadow the upcoming group project in which students would compose a narrative that introduces every member of the group and is accompanied by multiple beats. In week 2, students did a close reading of a quote from Sonny’s Blues underscoring literary and musical aspects of the text (i.e. “tickling up and down my spine”) prior to this scene. Then we used the ubiquitous early childhood and elementary music classroom Orff instruments (e.g. triangle, hand drum, jingle bells, glockenspiels) to create layered accompaniment. The objective of Week 2s activity is to model Week three’s project on a small scale and provide an opportunity for students to experience creative musical play ((John et al., 2016)—without the supervision of an adult. Thus, the activity was only 15-20 minutes, leaving time for a debrief of the experience and completion of the weekly feedback and evaluation. One group remained in the classroom and another in an abutting classroom room to do this activity. Two groups decided to

242 work in secluded places in the building. One in a corner of the atrium. And the fourth next to a stairwell.

Deejay: Good morning!

Students: Good morning.

Deejay: I don’t want to take up much of your time as you will have the full 3 hours to work on your narrative projects. But I want to address one thing before I send you off to work in your group. I was stuck on the A train at 59th street last week reading our feedback and evaluations. And; I did not expect, to find that someone anonymously wrote “we were scolded by another professor.” And another, “we were told to leave.” ((two students of color speak up and out))

Anita & Roxy: That was us.

Deejay: What happened? Because I was HOT when I read that.

Anita: We were trying to create our beats and this White professor yelled at us over the balcony. He said we were too loud and disturbing his music theory class.

Deejay: I had a feeling that was exactly what happened. That is not O.K. When I got home, I sent an e-mail to the entire faculty explaining what was communicated to me by my students. I informed administrators and faculty that first of all, the activity was for 20 minutes and occurs every semester, or twice a year. But, this is the first time in 3 semesters a professor has scolded my students. Second, I informed everyone that I previously sought approval to have students in the hall composing music—for a brief amount of time—as to avoid logistics reserving 3 additional rooms. Of which, I reserve for longer (three hour) group composition projects.

Lastly, I wrote, “As professors, you do not talk to other adults that way. You ask whose class the students are in; and then, you go to the professor!”

Just so you know, I found out who said it. He responded privately in an e- mail. Just the same, I reiterated, “Do not, under any circumstance, disrespect students that way. You come to me next time. None of us own this building.”((students laugh))

I am born and raised in da hood! And, I love y’all. You are not kids. You are adults. And you are mine! No one is going to disrespect you. Furthermore, I know what some professors who

243 study classical music may think. They may think playing percussion instruments (Hendricks & Dorothy, 2018), particularly small percussion instruments is kinder noise (Radano, 2003, p. 81). Kinder, meaning kid in German. Or, some might call it primitive (Kendi, 2016). Additionally, another White male professor called students “punks” in an email sent to the entire SOM faculty. As two of you indicated, the professor who scolded you was White, and the majority of the students in this class are women of color. Connect your student brain to your teacher brain; and, think about that. How would Goodwin and colleagues (2008) respond? How might you handle situations like this in your career? Cause they do; and, will come up. ((looks at the classroom door)) And I saying all of this in front of you, with the door open; because, I know who I am. I am pretty hood. I don’t play dat. ((students laugh))

Now come on over here and let me show you where the instruments are so we can get to work our narrative projects.

Figure 5.1. Personal Communication 2019, July 11.

Figure 5.2. Personal Communication 2019, July 11.

After class, walking to the subway station reflecting into my phone’s recorder,

((laughing)) I am glad I stood up and said that [recounted the situation and my thinking]. And, asked them to think through the situation. ((laughing)). And, to hear their reaction! Nevertheless, I really do think it’s important for these students of color, and the White ones, to imagine themselves in similar circumstances. It all goes back to Emdin’s (2016) idea of demystifying the process. Which reminds me; at the end of class, I still had the 3-2-1 [feedback and evaluation] up. Two students

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of color, maybe Latinx, maybe Arabic. Enter and proceed to look at the projector screen. One said “Oh, this must be from the last class. That’s kinda cool!” ((laughing)). 2 students thought it was cool that a professor would be seeking feedback and evaluation. That’s very interesting!

People pay attention. Students pay attention to ev*ve*ry*thing. Everything! So, you betta always be aware ((laughing)). Right?! Cuz, even when you think they ain’t looking. Especially, teachers—those training to be teachers—they are always watching and picking stuff up. I am curious how they think it all went down in their feedback and evaluations.

Musical Beats & Lyrics Creating Music - I learned how to keep a beat - I learned how to compose/write - creating a beat is difficult music with my group - it is hard to keep on going with - creating music is a lot harder than your own beat it looks and seems in this auto-tune - will we be learning specifically age different beats/tones/rhythms? - music is just a different form of - incorporate different notes of mixed poetry the same chord - making music is not that hard - eighth note - making music takes a lot of - I learned how to write lyrics patience - making lyrics before finding -how can you focus on making a the beat is easier beat and singing at the same time? - making lyrics is hard/talking - will we have time to practice about yourself is hard before we present next Tuesday? - how can I make a consistent - it is hard to make music when you sound that matches the others have different visions added on? - how can I better my knowledge of - I learned different ways to play coming up with lyrics and a beat? one instrument - I learned to take every ones - I played a new instrument, not musical ability and combine it with a very good group for a musical performance

Social Working in Groups - I learned how to problem solve - I learned the names of everyone in my table - it was hard to even start but once you start it is easier - my group has a very busy life as do I. Yet we are all understanding and helpful to each other - I like the group activities, even though they throw me out of my comfort zone - people who learn better by listening - people who don’t contribute to the music aspect of this project still play an important role

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-this is a different process b/c there is no instructions - I am beginning to enjoy having the freedom to make decisions - my group and I had to rehearse our song multiple times but it led us to adding more stuff - I learned how we each have different ways of thinking and how to deal with them Educational Practices and Frameworks - how are we going to critique own music presentation? - doing exercises/activities helps me understand better what to learn - 5 pages [end of unit paper] is too long. Just kidding! - no rubrics is harder/makes us become more creative and inspired: think outside the box - I liked the readings and thought it was really important - I learned what a framework is - I learned what mirror and window framework is - the danger of a single story - single story- stereotyping -minoritized/marginalized - I learned of the minoritizing of LGBTQ learning, from the other groups presentation - third spaces (learning, imagining, action/transformation)

Table 5.2: Week 3 Feedback and Evaluation Responses (Music and Social)

Analysis

Triangulation of Week 3 data—student feedback and evaluation responses, transcriptions of class interactions and researcher reflections, course syllabus, and the third week’s lesson plan—uncloaks a functional blockade discursively bolstering Ladson-

Billings & Tate’s (1995) framing of Harris’ (1993) Whiteness as reputation and status property. To review, Harris’ (1993) reputation and status is defined as denigrating and/or othering as a way to closely monitor and gatekeep the status quotas of Whiteness. Here denigration is indicated when a “kid” on a campus that is majority-Hispanic, is presumed to be a thief pulling the fire alarm. And, is called a “punk” by the school of music (SOM) director in an e-mail to the faculty. Solórzano & Yosso (2001) assist aiding in the framing

246 of the campus diversity and the Whiteness of the SOM, “the fact that Blacks,

Chicanas/os, and Native Americans have been and are often still seen on television, film, and in print media as dumb, violent, lazy, irresponsible, or dirty” (p. 4) may then have triggered a need to monitor the building as stated by the “installed cameras” and a gatekeeping with “alarmed doors” alerted to in the e-mail. Building from this frame and given the July e-mail sent to SOM faculty by the director, it is likely another White professor in September may too, have been influenced to associate the appearance of multiple women of color as “socially and culturally inferior to Whites” (p. 5). Then a rationalization to ask students to leave for disturbing his Western European classical music theory class can be understood.

However, Anita, Roxy and group members likely felt a racial slight, as cited by

Dovidio (2001), Neville, Award, Brooks, Flores, and Bluemel (2013), Picower (2009),

Solórzano and Yosso (2001), and Sue (2005, 2007), or “scolded” as indicated by Anita.

My “I was hot” agentive grammatical framing of the situation and Anita’s “scolded” frame is no exaggeration. Solórzano & Yosso (2001) spell out:

many Whites see these statements differently and respond to people of color with such retorts as ‘you’re being too sensitive about race’ or ‘why does everything have to go back to race?’…Charles Lawrence (1987) has commented that through ‘selective perception’, Whites are unlikely to hear many of the inadvertent racial slights that are made in their presence[.] While minority people experience them all the time. In dealing with racial stereotypes in our teacher education classrooms…not only do we need to discuss overt or blatant racial stereotypes, attitudes, and behaviors, but we also need to listen, understand, and analyze racial microaggressions: those subtle, stunning, often automatic, and non-verbal exchanges which are put downs of Blacks by offenders [emphasis added]. (p. 6)

Meaning Roxy, Anita, and I are were grammatically and agentively attuned to the racial, patriarchal, and hierarchical power dynamics framing a White professor speaking down from a high-altitude asking mostly “kids” of color to vacate the premises. Anita and

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Roxy—a composite of the others—draws us to contour the agentive workings of

Eurocentric framings policing school property and dark bodies while erecting fortresses around White intellectual spaces and places.

In my audio-recoding reflection after week 3’s lesson, I rejoiced in my agentive and grammatical framing of the scolding experience indicated in “I am glad I stood up and said that” followed by, “I really do think it’s important for these students of color, and the White ones, to imagine themselves in similar circumstances.” My agency to speak up and out to students about the unexpected dangers seen and unforeseen (Milner,

2007), engaging race, culture, and positionality in education, then triggers the turning point grammatically framing what good teaching means to me indicated in “It all goes back to Emdin’s (2016) idea of demystifying the process.” Making clear the process included explicit explaining of e-mail exchanges rationalizing my moves and connecting lived experiences to readings demanded by “How would Goodwin and colleagues (2008) respond?” Yet demystification was not framed only for students. For me too, shown in

“teachers—those training to be teachers—they are always watching and picking stuff up.

I am curious how they think it all went down in their feedback and evaluations.”

Continuing the line of inquiry raised in the reflection, included among the responses in the third week’s feedback and evaluation were: “you are very protective of your students, thank you!,” “working in groups can be difficult, which shows how it can also be difficult for students,” “my group members were so patient with me which was sweet because I felt like a child on the floor with drums,” and “making connections makes this easier to understand.” See table for music (e.g., beats and creating) social (i.e. working in groups), and educational (e.g., mirrors and windows) specific responses.

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Grammatical and framing agency is evident too given my proclamation, “I am born and raised in da hood. And, I love y’all!” positioning myself as subject and ethically aligning attempts to celebrate and heal my cultural wealth of home. That is, I brought my whole self to the classroom, standing in the midst of framings breaking my cultural wealth and showing them “we are whole” (Lyiscott, 2015, p. 29). I then immediately extend agency to the students grammatically framing them as “adults” denouncing deficit language. Next, I implicate myself within the complexities of patriarchal and sexist positionalities when I frame students as possession indicated in “you are mine! No one is going to disrespect you.” Said differently, my professional privilege trolled my agency hereby potentially pitting me as parent safeguarding a class of ladies. Teacher paternalism (Freire, 1998) is further apparent in a student’s reflection comment “you are very protective of your students, thank you!” Yet a tag of appreciation after the comma may denote gratitude for “making connections” as written by another classmate.

Here wherein lies the crux of the analysis scene: good teaching engages the emotional acts followed with intentional activities for deconstruction and reflection

(Delpit, 1988; Solórzano & Yosso, 2001). As stated by Emdin (2016) “reality pedagogy involves the transfer of student/teacher roles so that everyone within the classroom can gain the opportunity to experience teaching and learning from the other’s perspective” (p.

87). As made clear by Casey in feedback and evaluation, “working in groups can be difficult, which shows how it can also be difficult for students.” To drive the point home, the “pedagogical scaffold serv[ing] to foreshadow the final project” in the italics setting the “state of play” aids in an additional framing for meta curricula scope and sequence aiming for clarity of teaching process. A double entendre too. The foretelling of the final

249 episodes of Chapter 5, how MUSIC 3000 students use lived experiences, digital media

(i.e. YouTube clips), Hip-Hop music, and class readings to dialogically name injustices in

(music) teaching and learning; and, carry out plans for what we will do about them.

Realities of Teaching (Episode 1): Where is the Conflict?

The week before of Halloween. Class Eight. This episode was constructed by analyzing week eight’s lesson plan, rap sheet transcript, and feedback and evaluations responses for validity.

Deejay: Good morning loves! ((few students respond)). It is 9 o’clock. Thank you to the eleven of you that are on time. We are getting much better with our attendance! You know the routine by now. Go ahead and get started on the Do Now. Let other team members know what’s up as they arrive. We will share responses in a bit.

Envelopes are placed on the table with mundane prompts such as, tell a story about a TV show you watched, for this Do Now. Each person draws their own prompt and then tells the story. Part II is introduced after each person shares. Part II asks students to discuss how race influences, informs, and impacts their stories (Henderson & RESI, 2018).

Deejay: Alright, so. You don’t have to retell the story that you told; but we are going to tackle each one of the questions. Beginning with, in what ways did race influence one of the prompts that were in folder. ((15 seconds of silence)) In the story you just told, how did race influence your telling or your listening of it. ((18 seconds of silence)) Yes! Thank you, Yesenia.

Yesenia: Um, for the influence part, race has a lot to do with it my story. My prompt was about sitcoms, TV, movies, and video games and stuff. I said we spend a lot of time watching movies and shows. Everyone is like a different race. But the way they are perceived or the way the act is usually, kinda like, a bias of what people think.

Deejay: So, what you are getting at are biases. The things we hear and see on TV can negatively influence what we think about others. Great! On to the second question: how does race inform the prompt? How does it give you information?

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Rob: What exactly does that mean?

Deejay: Let’s see. If we take the TV show example; and, you are watching the show and you start realizing there is something bad being depicted about Latinos. What information does that give? Does that makes sense?

Rob: A little bit.

Deejay: Can someone else explain it? ((student raises hand)) Take it away!

Maggie: It like shows values in the kind of image projected.

Deejay: Mmmmmmmm! ((as if I have smelled freshly baked cookies)) The images might tell you what people value. Or a projection of their values.

Let’s rewind back to mirrors and windows. You are reading a story to a child. The story has beautiful pictures; and, those pictures are information students are taking in. Children might not be able to read or hear all the words. But they are going to be looking at the pictures. And those picture will give them information constructing their perspective. Does that make a little bit more sense, Rob? ((shakes head “yes”)) Ok. Third question, how does race impact the mundane prompts?

Yesenia: Is like the TV thing. If children watch and they see one race being bullied by another, then a child may think its ok to bully that race. Like a child may automatically feel those people are supposed to be that way. But, they are not. It’s just in their minds.

Deejay: Mmmmm. ((as if licking warm chocolate off my lips)) To me, what you are picking up on, is what we constantly see impacts our thinking of right and wrong. Is that what you are saying? ((Yesenia & Maggie nod yes)). Great.

I told you this unit is about history. And history is set in home. The stories that our histories tell give us information about where we come from, the things that we carry, and an outlook into what influences, impacts, and informs how we teach.

Let’s review our two historical paradigms of early childhood music development, since we have friends that are rejoining us. We have the incompetent child as blank slate. In music, we think about music for social, emotional, and intellectual development. That is what Young (2016) talked about. Meaning it is our responsibility to fill, to color, to write on the pages of what we think the child should do. Right or wrong. Next, Young (2016) and Bond (2015) shared the second paradigm, the

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competent child. The competent child comes with their own stories cultural ways of being, and doing, and learning learned from experiences at home, before they get to school. And we if we position the child as competent, then we understand they can engage the world, socially and cognitively. They can also create. So do we get the 2 paradigms of music education that we are looking at?

Class: Hmmm hmmm.

Deejay: Ok, I moving right along. Mariana Souto-Manning’s (2014) “making a stink about the early childhood classroom” and Bettina Love’s (2015) “what is hip hop doing in a nice field like elementary education” in their own ways asked us to consider stories and conflict. Specifically, Mariana laid out how we often think of conflict as two people or a group fighting. She asked us to think about it differently. How so?

Maggie: It said like um, the ideal classroom is usually peaceful. Nobody gets defensive and follows the rules. When it comes to teaching young children though, you have to walk them through conflict because they have to be able to coexist with other students and learn to problem solve. Its more than school, it’s how to be a part of society as well.

Deejay: Does anyone disagree with what Maggie just said? ((17 seconds of waiting)). Alright. Bringing back Goodwin et al., (2009) and Young (2016) and adding Emdin’s (2017) South by Southwest video into the conversation: in which culture is the ideal is set in? ((Maggie raises her hand)) Hold on, Maggie, you are contributing a lot. Thank you so much. Let’s give some others space.

Rob: Can you repeat the question?

Deejay: Yeeeesss! Always glad to repeat. Thank you for asking. Souto-Manning. Goodwin. Young. Emdin—all of the scholars we’ve looked at to frame this historical unit—have noted the ideal classroom is rooted in one specific culture. What culture do they name?

Kiyoko: White suburban schools?

Deejay: Yes. White suburban schools. White middle-class culture is considered ideal. And in White middle-class culture, conflict is something to be avoided. You don’t talk about politics and religion because it can make people uncomfortable. Right? ((laughter)) It’s this idea of whitewashing everything. We teach Columbus as this savior who found America. But do we talk about the rape and the disease that Columbus and his people brought to the country? Not really. That’s the ideal. That is keep everything conflict free. ((clicking to the next slide)) Thus, Mariana asks

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us to frame conflict as ((stopping to look around the room)), Sharon, may you read this slide please?

Sharon: “People negotiating social rules as well as our relationships with others, disagree with them, offering multiple perspectives, and expressing in many ways our experiences in and with the world” (p. 609).

Deejay: Thank you. Here’s a story to connect the dots. I currently live in the hood and was born and raised in the hood. There is a way that Black people talk to each other that is different and can be assumed as aggressive and adversarial. But it’s our way of expressing self as we move through our experiences ((umm-hmmm overheard, like an “Amen brother”)) And to get even more deeper, because I heard Rob talking about Toni Morrison’s book The Bluest Eye. Toni Morrison (1993), in her Nobel Lecture, said roughly, for a people who’ve had their language taken from them, to talk back is a sign of liberation and freedom. Think of an English as a second language experiences some of you wrote about in your narrative papers and we read about (Souto-Manning, 2009b). Remember you were constantly corrected and monitored for the way you talk, or told your accent is deemed inappropriate. If you have had something taken away from you—and you choose step in it, own it, or reclaim it as Au and friends (2016) suggest—there will be conflict. Because you are saying, “I don’t have to deal with that perspective anymore.” Trust me, I am going through conflict right now as I try to make some changes in our field ((referencing having security called on me at TC))

And I know conflict has already bubbled up in here; because, tension in groups came up in some of our feedback and evaluations. But you did not want to engage. Or, a few weeks ago a White professor yelled at some of you. And you just left without responding. You are keeping the peace. So today, I am going to ask us that we not keep the peace anymore. And engage in some conflict, so we can develop some tools together, in order to maneuver in different circumstances. ((looking around the room and the wide-eyed students. The air in the room is thick)) Don’t worry, there will be a game we will do to make it smoother.

The game: Up/Down (Udvari-Solner & Kluth, 2018) - All students stand up after each of the 3 video clips. One person frames the conflict from their perspective. All who agree sit. If left standing, the process repeats with another stating the conflict from their viewpoint.

Roxy: I am uncomfortable with being on the spot like that. I may just sit down.

Deejay: That is your choice. We do have Touchstones (Palmer, 2018) right? ((our circle of trust agreements adopted on the first day)) Everything that we do is an offering. But I am going to push you a little bit to think about what

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does it mean to lean into conflict and say “this makes me uncomfortable, but I am going to try it anyway.” Alright?

Olivia: Are we doing it one at a time, or all taking at once.

Deejay: We’ll do one at a time. And you may find more than one conflict. Look at the teacher. The student. The other students. Take in all of the information. Put yourself in multiple shoes. Because, you are going to be in a classroom where ((clapping)) conflict is going ((clapping)) to come up ((clapping)). If your classroom is soo peaceful all the time; then, I think something is not right. You and/or students are holding things in and they are bound to split out. As indicated by Mariana (2014) conflict arose when the teacher is not around, when students just on their own doing what we do. Shooting the shit. And I said shooting the shit for a reason. Conflict. Are we ready? ((walks to computer and plays video 1)) Numero uno.

YouTube video 1(dabaul1, 2014) features a chorus classroom where students have returned following a district teacher strike. A Black female student is recorded yelling at her Black male music teacher saying “You betta teach something!” After clip, MUSIC 3000 students take a minute to finish writing thoughts on a graphic organizer. All students stand up chairs screeching across the floor breaking the silence. No one says anything for 33 seconds.

Deejay: Jump in. ((fearing that time may slip away))

Maggie: She was really disrespectful. Even if she felt like she and the other kids were not learning something, for her to make a big scene about it is just inappropriate.

Deejay: Sit down, if you agree. Stand up and state your case for conflict if you don’t. ((only 8 are left standing))

Rob: I feel like the conflict is, not every student learns the same. And, that she is getting frustrated that she goes to class every day and isn’t getting anything from it. Although the way she handled it was inappropriate—its more so frustrating for her to know that her teacher was fighting for better wages for himself but not willing to work to show that he deserves the wages by teaching students in a way that they can retain information. ((remaining students sit down))

Deejay: Ok. Next video.

The second YouTube clip (iowacaucuses, 2007) is former United States Congressman Mike Huckabee explaining the importance of music and the arts in education. Students immediately stand-up ready to comment.

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Rob: Well, I think the conflict is that ((realizes one student is still writing)). Oh, I’m sorry. ((Student says its ok)). Where I think the conflict is the fact that Huckabee said schools are getting rid of theatre classes and art classes, means we are giving students a lot of science information but not giving students the choice of knowing how to use this information in a way that will help society and better the world. It’s like schools prevent the students from challenging society. ((all students sit down))

Deejay: That’s the first time this has ever happened that all 24, well there are not 24 people in here, but the class sat down. Let me stoke the fire a bit. He mentioned Michelangelo and Da Vinci as the greatest. ((students mummer)).

Julie: I was going to say something about that.

Deejay: So why did you sit down?

Julie: I didn’t want to be put on the spot ((laughing)).

Deejay: Why didn’t you want to be put on the spot?

Julie: ((stumbling over her words)) Because no one was…Everyone would have…I don’t know.

Deejay: How did you feel when you had something to say and no one was there to back you up?

Julie: ((annoyingly)) Ugh. I’m not sure. That’s why.

Deejay: Ok. ((Sensing the intensity from the exchange))

Julie: I thought something slightly differently. I said the conflict in this video is Huckabee giving his biased understanding of creativity and how it should be used in a certain way academically. I don’t know.

Deejay: Tell me a little bit more about that.

Julie: He described students minds as empty processors.

Sharon: I totally agree with what Julie said. I also thought, like, he was being too rigid with the way he thinks children should learn. Kids develop differently at different stages. Nothing is set in stone.

Deejay: I wonder what any of you would do if Huckabee was your building administrator? All of you sitting down indicated that you would just go

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back to your classrooms and teach the way he expects you to. Would you do that? ((a student replies, no)). Who said no? How would you address it; because, that is that conflict piece.

Julie: It has to do with support. Like back in my high school, there was a teacher where his higher ups would always give him a hard time with his creative lessons and everything. But, all the students would be completely for it. And plenty of times, we as students fought with him to keep his job by organizing and signing petitions. I mean, I get it. You are an administrator and you’re always trying to keep order. Or keep some kind of a peace. But, what is the point of keeping the peace if all that you are doing is hurting students. And the high school is trying to uplift from having really poor graduation rates? Like, are you kidding me?

Deejay: Keeping the peace for who?

Julie: Exactly.

Deejay: Did I imagine that someone else had their hand up over there ((waiting)). No?

Sneah: I was going to say something.

Deejay: Go ahead.

Sneah: There was one thing that was really odd to me, what he said about the left brain and right brain. Like, as a psychology major, I don’t know if that’s true. There is so much about the brain we do not know. And the fact that he may use biased evidence and proof was striking to me.

Deejay: Myths. We all tell myths to further our objectives. We have told small lies and things to get what we want. Haven’t you? Something to keep in mind. My point is to listen to the language. Remember what I said about Toni Morrison. Language will give you clues into what someone thinks. And, if you can connect the language back to some of the paradigms that we’ve talked about, then you are going to begin to get a fuller picture. Ok. One more? ((yeses fill the space))

This conflict took place right here in New York City and made national news. It also centers on the general elementary classroom since we have been focused on music education. This clip is a CBS news story. I tell you, every time I see young people in little vests with SSA, I think about this story. The school is still here operating in the city.

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YouTube clip three (CBS Evening News, 2016) shows a White female first grade teacher ripping a Black girls assignment and sending her to time out. 50 seconds of silence passes before students speak.

Ying: I think that the conflict is that um ((nervously continuing)) the teacher set a negative environment for the rest of the class by throwing projections back on the child. By ripping the paper, I feel like she wanted the child to be down on themselves, be scared in a way, to not make a mistake. I mean for first graders, they are still very young. So, like even a small incident like this will impact their growth.

Sneah: I like totally agree. But in the video, someone said that the principal is not telling the whole story. I am not saying that the teacher was right, at the same time, there is more of a conflict. Like some times this occurs if the teacher is White and the student ((whispers)) Black. There is a race issue that occurs and that makes its more controversial. That’s what I felt.

I silently reflect while Sneah is speaking. She was the student during week one who boldly framed Blacks as being suffocated by oppression during a small group discussion. Why would she whisper Black in this circumstance? Why does the mere utterance of the word create conflict? Was it the heat of the moment? Being forced to stand and make a position? Could she be sparring my feelings as the only Black person in the room? What are the pros and cons of discussing race in large group settings versus small groups? Not much time to think. The class is beginning to dialogically problem-solve blockades of Whiteness.

Kate: I find this a difficult situation; because, every teacher has their own way in their classrooms. But I saw the reaction when she ripped the work of the child. It was totally devastating and will send you back in your development, like way back. Like drop out of school or something like that.

Carol: I don’t agree with all of you. If that other teacher didn’t record it, no one would have said anything about it. We only know about this conflict because she was caught. Cause like the students would have been too scared to tell their parents. And on top of that, if other teaches hear things like that, they may think its rumors and they are most likely not going to do anything about it either. That’s just kind of the fact of the matter. It’s a big issue. And, on top of that, only a former teacher currently not teaching at that school come out and said ripping a child’s paper is a common practice. How much is it that people are actually able to talk. Versus not in fear of risking their jobs? ((I try to blend into the corners of all the walls as if I am invisible allowing the students to talk without me leading—and without directing their comments towards me)).

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Carol: Also, ripping up a student’s paper is not really a one-time incident. I have heard of it plenty of times in public schools. And they don’t do it just onetime either.

Rob: I also think there is like so many conflicts going on in that video. One of them was the fact that the teacher was an example for all teachers when it made the news. Kinda like, pretty much down grading all the teachers and the culture of that school.

Olivia: They also mentioned how special needs students were suspended so often it forced families to leave the school. It’s not like students asked to have special needs. It seems the school is not treating all students equally.

Maggie: It’s just a reflection on how the school cares more about the statistics in terms of grades on state exams scores more than what the students are actually learning and what experiences they are actually taking away from their education.

Rob: There was something that I forgot to say, they suspended the teacher and then brought her back into the classroom. And I feel like once you have one type of outburst with your students, just in general. Like you should not be working with kids. Because, teaching is a lot more than just math and reading. It’s about how you interact with others. At one point she even said, “You guys know I get upset when you don’t follow instructions.” As a teacher if you see that most of the class are not getting it, then you have to say to yourself, “ok I have to take this into a different direction” instead of getting upset with the kids.

Maria: I have a question. They said that she was getting trained again, and sent back. Did she not go through this training before? And if she was sent back to the same class, wouldn’t that have impact future students and families in her class? I would never go back to that same school because I would have everyone viewing me as a totally different person. Especially when it’s on news.

Deejay: What if I told you that she was promoted to be lead teacher of the school, training other teachers?

Students: Oh no, that’s trash!

Yesenia: Garbage. Total garbage. How are you going to have this teacher as an example for everyone when she was on display as the way she was. And, clearly she didn’t feel any type a way about it—she did not apologize for her actions or anything like that.

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Kate: I noticed the crying. I don’t think she was crying because…um…she was upset. She was crying because she got caught. And as a teacher I think she should reevaluate herself and ask “what am I here for?” Because if you are just going to yell at kids and be super rigid about following the rules; then, there will be conflict. Yea rules are there to avoid conflict. But you shouldn’t deal with it by just yelling at them and embarrassing students.

Deejay: ((I make a crying motion, pointing to tears running down my face. Students begin to giggle)) Connect this back to what Sneah said about the relationship between teacher and the majority Muslim, Black, and Latinx students. Specifically, right now in the political climate we are living in. Why does it matter that she was caught, cried, and promoted?

Kate: I guess it goes back to the race thing. The teacher was yelling at the Black student, and she’s White. And a lot of people who spoke out in support of her where White. Which infers, “it’s fine. Black kids are probably bad anyways.” People out there are biased toward different races.

Anita: I bet if it was a White parent, they would have made sure the teacher got fired.

Olivia: Yep, some teachers basically don’t care about students that much, because they want to get good ratings and statistics to keep getting more money. They want the money to help the kids, but then they don’t want to help the kids so they can get money.

Maggie: I agree. Money is where all the support comes from, so, the school allowed this since they promoted her. It just shows how the school, in the fact, actually encourages and rewards that type of behavior. Thus, making this something likely to happen again, and again.

Anita: Yep shows where the schools priorities are, that they don’t care about students safety.

Rob: To me, this video unmasked the setting and climate of the classroom. As teachers, you should want a positive climate in your room. And most of the times teachers are worried that the students are going to disrupt that climate.

In this case, the teacher was the one disrupting that climate making the child—no, the children actually—fear or regret making mistakes. And I feel like, especially young children should be allowed to make mistakes and learn from conflict. And teachers shouldn’t punish a child for making a mistake. Especially an academic mistake. Students should be safe in the areas that they are in.

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Deejay: You all are brilliant, brilliant thinkers and brilliant analyzers.

((end scene)))

Analysis

I analytically bound the conflicts together, merging all three videos, course readings, and participant lived experiences, first indicated in Julie recalling canvasing signatures in support of a teacher who might have loss pay and employment for choosing to agentively frame students as subjects: competent, possessing cultural and cognitive abilities to create and recreate. This is different than the congressmen objectively framing students as “empty processors” needing music and the arts to create technology and aesthetic experiences that evolve society, as framed and scored by Julie and Sharon.

Julie, Sneah, and Maggie’s use of framing agency forced us to consider how rigid ideologies of student development and ideals of a peaceful classroom rooted in White- middle class norms lead to insularity in music curriculum. They lift up the power of

Whiteness as an agent causing students of color to yell out their frustration. As in the case for video 1, in which Rob use his framing agency to make sense of how frustrated a student can get knowing “teachers were on strike for better wages but not willing to work to show that [they] deserve the wages by teaching students in a way that they can retain information.” Here, Rob frames teachers agentively using unions to fight for better benefits. Yet he immediately troubles agentive inconsistencies where pay increases and curriculum stays consistent. Perhaps better worded by Olivia during video 3, “They

[administrators] want the money to help the kids, but then they don’t want to help the kids so they can get money.” Oliva then builds with Rob and others in reinforcing the notion of teaching as a prepackaged routine (Freire, 1998).

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More still, Yesenia and Kate pointed out money in education allows “bias” toward different races to foster. Anita raised up how money influences teacher promotion and retention. Influences of money in education led to a “ripping” according to Ying or a

“devastating” to use Carol’s words, negative change in child development. And, a classroom climate where Rob asserted “Students should be safe in the areas that they are in.” Instead, we saw in the third video, a Black child was yelled at and sent to the time out chair. Or, as MUSIC 3000 experienced at PCNYC, classmates told to leave the building. Together, we positioned children, and at times ourselves as objects of other teachers’ actions determined by what is valued as ideal teaching and learning.

Something stirred my soul, or a turning point happened when I questioned Kate, a

White woman who has framed herself as one of the most traditionally trained musicians in the class. Here Kate employed her framing agency to identify racial power dynamics at play, indicated in “The teacher was yelling at the Black student, and she’s White. And a lot of people who spoke out in support of her where White.” Kate makes additional use of her framing agency to highlight the rally of others to defend the White teacher. In this way, Kate operationalized Whiteness as agentively framing protection and promotion by those who speak out in support.

Picower (2009), a White female elementary teacher educator—and author of two of MUSIC 3000 class readings—contextualizes Kate’s framings by giving tools of

Whiteness, moves “facilitating the job of maintaining and supporting hegemonic stories and dominant ideologies of race, which in turn upholds structures of White supremacy”

(pp. 204-205). A tool of interest pertaining to this analysis is Whites as victims, “attempts to show the ways in which [Whites] themselves, rather than people of color, were the real

261 victims of racism” (p. 204). Bringing Kate back into the analysis, her power as a White woman to use grammatical framing agency to state, “I don’t think [the teacher] was crying because…she was upset…she was crying because she got caught”—unveils tears—as a possible tool of Whiteness “to deny, evade, subvert, or avoid the issues raised” (Picower, 2009, p. 205). Reverberating with Picower (2009), a White teacher was crying because she got caught dealing an injustice to a Black student is more than an emotional passive resistance, it is “active protection” (p. 205) of White supremacy.

Realities of Teaching (Episode 2): What will we do?

Halloween week. End of Unit 2. Students are gathering back in the classroom after a 15-minute break. Each group has copies of the lyrics to J. Cole’s Brackets, markers, and large chart paper to document learnings. Of which helped to construct the trustworthiness of this episode along with class transcripts and feedback and evaluation responses.

Deejay: Welcome back! Hope the coffee break was refreshing. Before we move on to practicing the critical cycle (Freire, 1970) through a culture circle (Souto-Manning, 2010) or cypher (Emdin, 2016). First, I want us to review our conversation from last week. Analysis of our feedback and evaluation forms revealed a representative overall learning that “conflicts are necessary to helps us learn and grow.”

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Musical Music in the Critical Cycle - Kids [by A Tribe Called Quest] is a really good song - the song was the connection between fantasy and reality - I enjoyed going in depth about the song - finding themes for song book - music influences children - music can represent different things going on in a person’s life Social Working in Groups - the group work was very interesting & knowledgeable - I enjoyed the group work & understanding what others think - really liked the discussion my group had on action plans - really dived in to break it down which helped me realize how much I could relate to it - there are different perspectives in every situation - people see situations differently based off their culture and race - don’t project your own feelings on others - challenge your work place - everyone has their own stories and realities - everyone has diff. reality of growing up - having a whole perspective or understanding others can really help students Educational Frameworks and Practices - conflict is okay - conflicts are necessary in the classroom - how to tackle and resolve conflicts - there is always 1 brilliant thing from a conflict - conflict in students, teachers, policy - conflict isn’t talked about in classrooms - I like that we as a class can talk about conflict w/o conflict - How can we deal with conflict between a superior without causing more conflict? - what should a conversation look like w/ student when there is conflict? - teachers vs. student - student vs. student - was nice to consider the situations in the videos as it gives us perspective for the future - using different mediums help to break down/enforce various messages - the game Up and Down seems very useful to stir thinking - alternate way to debate with up & down - very active class today - love not being bored - critical cycle in the educational system (souto-manning) - how to create an action plan - using books in lesson

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- at one of the charter schools teachers and administrators try to cover up flaws to protect the looks of their school - (some) schools care more about reputation - embarrassment is not a lesson - I didn’t enjoy the random setting because I personally enjoy order

Table 5.3: Week 8 Feedback and Evaluation Responses

We arrived at this general point by using the competent child and incompetent child paradigms to watch 3 videos of students and teachers encountering conflict. Through dialogue we canvased the properties of Whiteness as constructing curriculum mainly serving as mirrors to White middle-class ideals which accrues interests to the promotion and protection of White values. And, in some cases White bodies. In this way, people of color become objects of assimilation, degradation, and or removal from White spaces, to which our required textbook by Au and colleagues (2016) historically framed. Here, we began to apply our lived experiences of injustices to position students and ourselves as subjects speaking up and out to name what is in hopes of changing it to a better could be. Today, I want to answer the question one of us asked, “how likely can we implement the action steps we outlined?” and another, “Why is it so important to relate everything to each other?” First, I want to answer the importance of relating concepts together by referring to our required text, allowing us to reconnect to a generative theme of money in education through a critical cycle using J. Cole’s Brackets (2018) as our codification of the theme. That’s a ‘yes’ to answer another question from the feedback and evaluation, “Will we discuss more about conflicts?”

Pilar: ((enters, exasperated)) Sorry I am late.

Deejay: No worries. ((student finds a seat)). Au, Brown, and Calderon (2016) asked of us to frame curriculum as a source of reclaiming African-American, Chinese and Japanese American, Mexican American, and Indigenous peoples histories in schools and schooling. But what does reclaim mean? Take out your phones and look up reclaim. Someone shout out what it means?

Julie: Webster’s defines reclaim as means to recall from wrong from improper conduct/conflict. To rescue from an undesirable state. Keep going? ((I respond yes)) To make available for human use by changing natural conditions. To obtain from a waste product or byproduct. To demand or obtain the return of something.

Deejay: Yes, to demand or recall a wrong due to improper conduct, such as video 3 of a White teacher sending a Black girl to time out. Or, ((I turn the slide to

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a New York Times article)) me taking to Facebook in 2016, calling out the wrongdoing of the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) saying at a meeting in Washington, D. C., that Blacks and Latinos can’t play the piano and are bad at music theory ((the room gasps)). How many of you know a Black or Latinx person that can play the piano? ((almost all hands go up)). What have we identified these comments or actions to be?

Anita: Bias.

Deejay: Yes. During our morning Do Now before the break; we too, identified our biases about Blacks in classical music. Why did we have ours?

Olivia: Well, not that I haven’t seen other races, but majority of the time there is a White man standing in front of the audience. And I think that since we are so use to that, we literally just thought a Black man couldn’t compose classical music.

Deejay: What else?

Kate: In schools we learn about Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy.

Deejay: There are Asians in this classroom. Why did only 2 people say an Asian could composed classical music?

Kiyoko: I think because we have become a little more familiarized. Like before the face of classical music was White men, now Asians are more prominent.

Deejay: Mmmmmm. At one point in the world Western European classical music was the most famous music. Well, I shouldn’t say in the world, because I don’t know about the whole world. But the development of audio technology allowed it to be heard widely (Howe, 2003). So, may be people latched on to it and said I can do this too!

Kiyoko: Yes.

Deejay: What I am hearing then, ((clicks to the next slide)) is that Whiteness is the presumed norm of which our standards and ideals are measured (Goodwin et al., 2008; Souto-Manning, 2014). Let’s go beyond the NAfME’s leaders biased comments and our incompetent and competent paradigms to see how Whiteness has historically framed Black intellect and talent.

I lecture for 8 minutes reviewing an origin and circulation of Black degradation in a comedian’s framing of a disabled slave in the character Jim Crow thoroughly explored in the autoethnography (Chapter 4). Flowing on a similar time travel used in my elementary classroom (Chapter 4), we stopped at the 1990’s U.S. Congressional (2007) hearing into Hip-Hop and Rap music entitled “The Business of Stereotyping and Degrading Images.”

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Next, through a New York Times article, we revisited Michael Huckabee’s “stupid, racist attack on Beyoncé and Jay-Z” (Rosenberg, 2015, para.1) critiquing Beyoncé’s Afrocentric super bowl performance and the couples On the Run tour (explored in the previous episode). We then watch a video clip from Straight Out of Compton (2015) where a reporter asks Ice Cube about the message and violence in the song “Fuck the Police.” The classroom lights are back up after the video clip.

Deejay: What did the actor playing Ice Cube say he was doing as a musician, as an artist? Cuz you have said the same thing about music in your feedback and evaluations, in our dialogue, and in your narrative papers.

Pilar: Reporting what’s happening.

Deejay: Reporting what is happening in the streets from his perspective. His own experiences. And now we have come back to 2016 where the former president of the organization who created the music education standards you must use in your upcoming lesson plans, said what he said about Blacks and Latinos. Music and music education is not that innocent.

And reflecting, now, about the things in the media, politics, and in our schools about people color. I thought about my family. ((switch slide to photos of me and my parents, and my brother during our childhoods)) Because, you too will have to write an essay about home. I thought of my baby brother ((sighs of awwww)). My baby brother was murdered on front steps of our home two years ago at 20 years old. He was in theatre, he was in music, he was an athlete. But he was bored in school and he fell to the streets. So, when I think about things that we say about people of color, the biases that we have. I think about for some people it is a matter of life or death.

When we think about racism, we think about large events. We think about the President locking kids and families in cages, we think about his ban on Muslims. We think about bombings. But we forget that racism is so seeped into our system that it functions naturally, and sometimes with benign intent (Alexander, 2012). Meaning, we don’t often see it working in our social system. That is we as people continue it. Which also means we as a people have the power to break it.

When we now connect the readings that we have done and the things we have seen ((walking to the desk to click next slide)). We can now state: Music is a social system. We have composed original music in our groups. And, music education is a system of teaching and learning music. We have learned of the competent and incompetent paradigms of child music development and its intent and impact on education. Therefore, music education is a social system that is also embedded in institutional racism. When we think about music education, it just as racists as anything else.

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We are now going to engage in another critical cycle, but Emdin (2016) calls it a cypher. A cypher is where maybe 2 or more people are in the middle rapping and everyone is around listening, experiencing it, thinking about it. And sometimes someone from the outside would jump in and say their piece. He also calls its co-generative dialogues where each of you, together, are generating ideas through talking about your own experiences. You are co-creating new ideas. For teacher education, he calls that co- teaching. Meaning, I am not the expert and you are not the experts of everything. We are the experts of ourselves. That way when we bring all of you, conflicts, traumas, things that are on your plate, and we listen to someone else, we can co-teach each other and build each other up. ((walking to pass out lyrics to the song))

So a few of you wrote about J. Cole’s music in your first narrative papers. Brackets presents an opportunity for all of us to engage him because he raps about money in education a theme from last week. And, breaths space for connections to money, race, racism, and systems of exclusion merged with social class. Listen to the song, then within your cyphers use your lived experiences to answer (1) What is the conflict of Brackets? (2) What does it mean to you? (3) What must we do as educational practitioners?— That means action steps. What actions steps will you take as a result of this critical cycle? Be sure to document cypher learnings on the Post-It paper and complete Week 9 feedback and evaluation at the end of class. ((end scene))

Musical Music in a Cypher - Hip hop is not violent - I vibed with the J. Cole song - enjoying song analysis - I liked breaking down the J. Cole song because it helps with annotation - I enjoyed the J. Cole song, because I’ve never heard it - J.Cole’s song was harder to unpack than last week’s song, bit it was good. - it was really nice having my song on the playlist and what others put as their songs as well - listening to music puts me in a better mood - there was a lot going on for one topic - Are there any famous female classical composers? - I wish we could learn more about music - I loved the playlist! - A Black male created the song we heard in class today - J. Cole writes about real life problems - overtime, how music is an expression or voice to express your beliefs on something

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Social Working in Groups - I liked the conversations we had in our group - group activities and talk is good - realizing how hard some have it - group work was fun - I enjoyed talking about real issues happening today - we all go through similar issues - race can be a mixy topic - I learned a lot about other students - learned more about my classmates Educational Frameworks and Practices - I learned how there isn’t proper representation in all classroom lessons - the world in general, is messed up - Race is one of the biggest issues truly in the education system - the world has not changed, that much (racism) - words, single words can affect a person and we might not realize - how unfair taxes money is distributed? - conflicts in smaller communities - how society treats minorities - how people are taught to conform - treatment towards Indigenous people - a lot of cultures have gone through almost the same thing when transitioning from their home to America - how history eventually repeats in different ways - about the conflicts of African American, Japanese Americans form my classmates, - more about the struggles African Americans today - educating ourselves about different cultures is important - designing classroom set-up - teaching full history are essential - there should be more representation in the classroom - individuality should be encouraged - I liked learning about race a lot and discussing it - how do taxes get distribute? - how can we as educators make a difference when we have to follow a set of guidelines? - how do we teach the real history while remaining in school guidelines? - Is making a lesson plan hard. - how can we work better on the action plan section? - how do you teach/inform students about race at a young age? - Unknowingly stereotyping could be a higher issue than most people think - What are you going to do with your PHD?

Table 5.4: Week 9 Feedback and Evaluation Responses

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Figure 5.3: Brackets group Post-it paper cypher learnings.

Analysis

Similar to the previous episode, analysis for this second composite episode is gathered from week 9’s transcripts, class learnings documented on Post-It paper (e.g.,

Figure 5.3), and feedback and evaluations. The lesson began with me framing students as subjects centering their overall interests in further educational framing of conflict, enthusiasm for “active” movement in the classroom (i.e. “the game Up and Down seems very useful to stir thinking”); and, indicated again when inserting technology into class discussion (i.e. “Take out your phones and look up reclaiming”). Student subjectivity to guide curriculum was additionally framed by the strength of social responses to working

269 group comments on feedback forms (i.e. “I enjoyed the group work & understanding what others think” and “people see situations differently based off their culture and race”). Framing student subjectivity in curriculum then allowed me to be “critically aware of the injustices enacted by a system that ignore” (Souto-Manning, 2019, p.18) the interest and inquiries of students of color. Not all students were comfortable with the format. Roxy self-identified expressed in feedback, “I am uncomfortable with being put on the spot” and “I really have a hard time in this class,” wanted to know explicitly,

“Why is it so important to relate everything to each other?” Within this context, she frames herself agentively choosing to speak up and speak out about her needs and wants within classroom, also acknowledging the tensions of being framed and positioned by conflict.

Kiyoko, Kate, and Olivia also capture tensions. Maggie acknowledged that other races compose classical music, but as Kate stated, “In schools we study Mozart,

Beethoven, Chopin, and Debussy,” grammatically framing an overrepresentation of

Western European classical music to school curriculum. The dominance of Western

European ideologies in curricula and society then aids in what Anita’s named as “biased” framings contributing understandings that a “Black man couldn’t compose classical music.” Yet Kiyoko inserted that Asians, too, are a visible demographic in music schools.

Within this context, Kiyoko, Kate, and Olivia grammatically cast light on a system fraught with incoherencies and the power of dominant stories to suffocate different perspective leading to biased framings—a perpetuation of myths (Baldwin, 1963).

Kiyoko also lead to turning point in the flow of the lesson. As a self-identified

Asian immigrant speaking up and out against the framing of classical music as White-

270 only indicated in: “before the face of classical music was White men, now Asians are more prominent.” Albeit, Kiyoko also positioned Asians is close approximation with

Whiteness (Leornardo, 2009). As an Asian of lighter hue, she exposed an “inherited sense of history that belongs to, rather than taken from…recogniz[ing] that their daily taken-for-granted benefits are legacies from decades of Japanese imperialist policies” (p.

89). Meaning, color does matter and privileges are often extended to those with closer approximations to whiteness. Here her grammatical connection to ethnic identity agentively frames reclamation within this context, as Kiyoko agreed, “yes”, when I reframed her comment “So, maybe people…said I can do this too!”

Moreover, this is when I sequenced to engage the social and educational moral dilemmas inherent in biased, or anti-Black (Au et al., 2016) framings of dark bodies— such as “a matter of life or death” that befell my brother. Or as a student wrote in feedback, “a lot of cultures have gone through almost the same thing when transitioning from their home to America.” I then made use of my agency to vulnerably communicate my story of home in growing up in North Carolina as a model of good teaching, stated in

“you too will have to write an essay about home.” By the same token, J. Cole (also born in North Carolina) and his song Brackets model good teaching within the critical cycle by being codified from the words and themes emerged from me and students’ “own universe” (Souto-Manning, 2010, p. 37) as mean to problematize a concern raised, what shall we do about money in education?

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Brackets

MUSIC 3000 students’ cypher to Brackets unveil a prominent narrative about school funding—more money solves problems in urban schools. This rests on a master- narrative of reforming schools and schooling and rejecting colonial framings of U.S. government constructed by White men to protect the interests and rights of White property (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). Instead, most communities of color remain disadvantaged in schools because of racial entanglements with taxes and school funding.

Better stated by a student in feedback and evaluation, “if you aren’t White, you get a different type of education than White people.”

Week 9’s renderings on Post-It from a class of overwhelmingly women of color indicated that money and social class serve as an obstacle to community and school curriculum. Or indicated by a group of students “communities that need more resources are less likely to get these resources compared to richer neighborhoods.” And another,

“the government takes our hard-earned money and puts it towards things we don’t have a choice in…doesn’t give the communities a voice where the money/funding goes.” Said simply, “paying tax dollars and not seeing results.” The effect, according to one group of students is an “endless cycle” where, as Ladson-Billings and Tate (1995) theorized,

“quality and quantity vary with ‘property value’ or greatest number of White kids in the school” (p. 54). To which a group positioned as the “typical route to success.” Meaning, assimilate or exterminate (Au et al., 2016). Aggregately, MUSIC 3000 positioned

Whiteness as property agentively imposing conditions whereby tax dollars are distributed unequally. They explain that good teaching would not rob students of the resources

272 needed and invalidate students. Just the opposite, good and well-resourced teaching in action would:

“put student resources first,” “inform students about social class,” teach “financial literacy as a topic—maybe in a math class,” “creating a safe space in the classroom,” “make sure all students know they have the same rights,” “educate yourself and others to take action to make change in the communities that need more resources,” “teaching different cultures,” “teach using books with diverse characters and stories,” “making school more well-rounded and diverse though curriculum.”

These actions comprise what we collectively sought to do.

For the remaining seven weeks, students self-selected into four teams to use their lived experiences and course learning to research and co-generate four original social justice units of study (unit map, lesson plans, and research paper). But, “as for the lumpenproletariat,” wrote Fanon (1961), “they improve their knowledge through practical experience” (p. 92). Here, two opportunities (before the final) to practice co- teaching group lessons were provided for feedback and evaluation from peers and professor during weeks 16 and 17. In essence Unit 3, “required a redistribution of power in the classroom that return to the essence of teaching—privileging the voice of the student” (Emdin, 2016, p. 87). The four unit abstracts below are representative of MUSIC

3000’s agentive framing of good teaching for diverse classrooms—teacher and students building inclusive relationships to celebrate, contrast, and communicate safety and respect for individual and community education and economic growth through curriculum.

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Teach-Share Teams* (4- Unit Abstract 6 students per team)

Our unit will focus on fairy tales and fables from different Fairy Tales cultures. We will compare and contrast the fairytales…and analyze why some aspects of the fairy tales are similar and some are different. Using the differences, we will examine how differences could be related to the cultural [setting and author] of the fairytale. For the activity, we engage students to write an original multicultural version of Cinderella. Then apply compare and contrasting skills to Walt Disney version we will watch as a class.

The lack of inclusivity in classrooms can affect successful practices. Thus, we aim to develop an inclusive curriculum Hippies to increase motivation in diverse classrooms. In order to achieve this, we share lessons and activities for creating an understanding, comfortable, and more focused atmosphere so students can celebrate the differences and similarities between each other. We also focus on the importance of teachers to know the students and build trusting relationships with them. We conclude this allow students to succeed academically and grow as individuals.

SET This research discusses the importance of socio-emotional learning development using third grade Common Core English and Music Education standards (NAfME). Socio- emotional development, oftentimes a topic typically ignored by school curriculums, is a vital point in creating an environment of positive structured learning. The purpose of teaching socio-emotional skills is to build a bridge between the educational and social gap. We discuss this by touching on the importance of regulating emotions, effective communication, applying empathy, developing positive self-esteem, and building strong character development skills. Music is explored to develop critical thinking skills on the importance of socio-emotional growth. And, develop better critical thinkers by using the mirrors and windows framework approach.

For some students, the classroom is their only time apart Cash Money from family as well as their only time to be independent to a certain extent. In this way teachers are there to guide

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students about how we as a community communicate with each other and how to positively impact the world. Meaning, teachers shape the future from their classroom not only from teaching their students mathematical skills or literacy skills but social skills as well. We believe *Self-selected group developing community social skills begin with respect and names allowing young students to creating a world outside of the classroom as they think it should be. Our lessons hope to show that when we implement respect in our classroom, we create a safe learning space for young minds to grow into the future that is to come.

Table 5.5 MUSIC 3000 Final Research Paper

Connection to Research Questions

Chapter V can best respond to research questions one, four, and two. Answering in that order for clarity and flow of answers. Addressing the first part of question one, what are the normative discourses (cultural narratives) in/of music teacher education as a field? Normative discourses in music education frame the quality and value of music within the constraints constructed by Western European culture and ideologies. In this way, White-middle class ways of being, knowing, practicing, and performing frame what counts as competent and incompetent ways to engage with and learn about music in society and schools. Historically framing music in schools and society under Eurocentric lenses of White cultural narratives protects its power and privileges with agentive tools to control access (e.g., prerequisites—preference for previous substantial immersion and knowledge of Western classical music), academics (e.g., traditional school music curricula mirroring Whiteness, and atmosphere (e.g,. assimilation, regulation, and/or

275 removal of bodies and ideologies from physical place appearing to create conflict-free contexts of neutrality).

Question four asks, how have I identified, negotiated, and positioned my cultural wealth (deficits, traumas, surpluses) in the teaching of music to elementary school teachers across time and space (or within the context of PCNYC)? Within the context of

PCNYC, I identified myself as Black-Queer male; from da hood; doctoral student; and, teacher educator. Identifying my race, sexual queerness, and neighborhood positioned my cultural wealth as a mirror to the majority students of color in MUSIC 3000.

Additionally, openly stating my male gender identity—and privilege—forced me to continually reckon with how to best engage learning and teaching with a class of 23 women. Making known my identity as a doctoral student enabled me to frame and make sense of the complex realities of being a student in New York City; albeit undergraduate departments are further on the spectrum to doctoral programs. That being my reflection and analysis of lived experiences as a student supported negotiating my identity as teacher educator, or professor teaching music to pre-service elementary school teachers.

Which leads to question two, what have my lived experiences been within and across music teacher education? How does my identity reflect and/or defies dominant discourses in music education? Lived experiences as Black-Queer-male teaching majority students of color—yet also gender minority—at PCNYC, coupled with previous lived experiences in higher educational institutions in NYC and elsewhere, taught me that humility (Freire, 1970; Souto-Manning, 2010) and vulnerability (Emdin, 2016) defy dominant discourses if critical dialogue frames peoples as subjects with agentive power to problematize and speak up and out to dominant epistemologies and ontologies. From

276 this perspective, good teaching is constructed with and reflective of students in surpluses and not prescriptive prepacked pedagogies disconnected from physical place and emotional space.

—Outro

Chapter V rendered and analyzed the research setting, lived narratives of participants and a Black-queer doctoral student and teacher educator from da hood—in dialogue with majority Latinx preservice early childhood and elementary students in his music teacher education course (MUSIC 3000) at Public College New York City.

Findings from the majority women of color (and some White ones too) seeking to become licensed early childhood and elementary teachers suggest that as White

(Eurocentric) cultural frames music teacher education, normative discourses of music teaching and learning will cultivate racial feelings of isolation and marginalization for teachers of color. Further, Kate as a classically trained White musician, underscores how previous extensive immersion in Western European canon and curriculum as performer and teacher does not a music educator make. Thus, the Eurocentric canon and normative discourses in music teacher education becomes irrelevant and disconnected from teachers’ knowledge and experiences “treating teacher quality as clarity of content”

(Souto-Manning, 2019, p. 25). These 16 composite voices—representative of the twenty- four students—invite us to listen and hear how Eurocentric framings of “good teaching” and “good teachers” often turns bodies of color (and some White ones too) into degraded objects. All the more important for those committed to equity and justice in (music)

277 teacher education seek and learn about the potentially damaging (at times covert) effects of overwhelming Whiteness in schools.

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Chapter VI

EPICLOGUE:

THOUGHTS ON REIMAGINING MUSIC TEACHER EDUCATION

Epic (/’epik/): a long poem, typically derived from ancient oral traditions, narrating the deeds and adventures of a heroic or legendary figures, or the history of a nation. (Google Dictionary, 2020)

Epiclogue (/’epik-log/): the conclusion of an autoethnographic m(ode), typically derived from Afrocentric storytelling traditions, narrating the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of brilliant people of color moving through White supremacy, or uncloaking the colonial history of a nation.

Conclusion

It was a snow flurry late December afternoon day of the final. For some students,

MUSIC 3000 final would be their first of or second of two for the day. The boiler heat was pipping and my underarms were sweating. I sat in the back of the classroom and watched majority women of color come into the classroom painted with anticipation, exhaustion and excitement, nervousness and some indifference as they gathered in groups to share their final co-teaching lessons. The task was for each member of the group to have a part in teaching a 30-minute critical lesson with music as a feature. Thirty minutes later, one group read and deconstructed a multicultural children’s book about identity and creating community on the first day of school. Sixty-minutes after that, group two used a pop song as text to problematize beauty standards. An hour and half later, the third group

279 takes a traditional childhood book and with three words written on the board (tree, take, man) create critical dialogue on climate change, capitalism, and patriarchy. Two hours at the end the fourth group completes having us reimagine inequities in fairy tale palaces. It was one of those surreal moments as I watched students pass the baton to one another flowing from objectives to activities, reading books to hearing music, and teachers talking to students creating. There was an imperfectly perfect connection that “signified a collective value of a particular phenomenon” (Emdin, 2007, p. 219).

The co-teaching (Emdin, 2016) that took place connected students and me in a way that “hearts begin to beat to the new national rhythm and they softly sing unending hymns to the glory of the fighters” (Fanon, 2014, p. 80). Fanon (1961/2014) referred to these fighters and the phenomenon as the lumpenproletariat. It is the moment of finding a connection as “creative subject[s]” (Fanon, 2014, p. 175) of artists teaching and writing possibilities of new songs driven by “concerted action” (Fanon, 2014, p. 175) to change normative discourses of schools and schooling. Fanon described:

At another level, oral literature, tales, epics, and popular songs, previously classified and frozen in time, begin to change. The storytellers who recited inert episodes revive them and introduce increasingly fundamental changes...Every time the storyteller narrates a new episode, the public is treated to a real invocation. The existence of a new type of [body] is revealed to the public. The present is no longer inward but channeled in every direction. The storyteller once again gives free rein to [their] imagination, innovates, and turn creator. It even happens that unlikely characters of such a transformation, social misfits such as outlaws or drifters, are rediscovered and rehabilitated. Close attention should be paid to the emergence of the imagination and the inventiveness of songs and folk tales in a colonized country. The storyteller responds to the expectations of the people by trial and error and searches for new models, national models, on [their] own, but in fact in support of [their] audience…By imparting new meaning and dynamism to artisanship, dance, music, literature, and the oral epic, the colonized subject restructures [their] own perception. The world no longer seems doomed. Conditions are ripe for the inevitable confrontation. (pp. 174-176)

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In essence, what Fanon refers to is oppressed people employing lived experiences as a break in normative discourses that allows for reimagining to happen. As I recapitulate the chapters in this dissertation, and revive the studies that led to the creation of this composition, I find that one of the notes resounding throughout them all is the search for mirrors and windows or framing and positionalities of identity where students “build the kind of solidarity, interest, and kinship” (Emdin, 2007, p. 220) around (music) teaching and learning that schooling and society white-washed out of them.

My motif throughout the chapters in this dissertation has been that Afrocentric teaching and learning can be created in music teacher education by a go for broke

(Baldwin, 1963) positionality to Eurocentric practices that have proved to be defecating on teachers and students of color. To go for broke in practice either occurs individually or collectively. When going for broke individually, then one has the responsibility to account for and critique self-playing a role in societies structures as targeted in Chapters I and II (when Hess & Talbot, 2019 positions individuals, specifically those in oppressed groups charged with changing society). In the case of collective action to go for broke in music teacher education, spaces where all is cultural, historical, and political implicated experts of lived experiences dialogically cogenerating critiques and creations to change schools and schooling. Here merging critical race theories and critical pedagogy develops a race-conscious review of literature in music and music education framing historical and contemporary epistemologies centered in discourse. Critical pedagogies then centered the collective lived experiences and individual narratives of students and teacher educator of color encouraging the naming of one’s reality and planning of action to change it.

Postcolonial theories then give space to speak up and out against normative discourses of

281 quality music and music education. This is so because attention is paid to the emotional space and physical place (Emdin, 2016) of teaching and learning creating an optimal classroom culture for the student to lead the way while teacher facilitates pathways and connections for learning.

Together, Chapter II’s conceptualization of the “Go fo’ Broke” now becomes “an

Afrocentric Pedagogy of Music Teaching and Learning” where brilliant students and teachers become co-creators that compose connections around the ethics of good music teaching. With this lens, the brilliant student-teachers of MUSIC 3000 and I celebrated, interrogated, and complicated the how, what, where, and why of successful teaching and learning of music in the classroom. In this way, students’ and teacher educator’s cultural wealth (deficits, traumas, surpluses) of home is “exchanged for canonical” (Emdin, 2007, p. 221) experiences, knowings, and sense making into the music classroom. And, new music and curricula composed with students uncloaks blockades in normative discourses of master-apprentice models repositioning surplus subjects collectively cyphering and playing out co-teaching towards a common goal of reimagining music in schools and schooling. In this light, Chapters IV and V rendered composite narrative episodes and scenes of teacher turning to students to lead as a dialogical epistemological shifting of economical, educational, cultural, historical, political, and social interests necessary for teaching and learning to change (or not), answering research questions 1-4. What is left is research question five: how do my experiences, priorities, and epistemologies interact with and contribute to the social history of music teacher education?

This self-study and my experiences as a Black-queer male who has learned to prioritize the advancement of Black and Brown peoples, rooted in Afrocentric

282 epistemologies interacting with the social history of music teacher education can now contribute what I call a Rap between the Consciousness of the Lumpenproletariat

Stance (R&BCLPS) plays how racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse subjects co-compose and co-teach practices to which all individuals contribute in their own unique ways of knowing: to collectively name the process by which we arrive at a state of knowing—that is contingent upon activist involvement in transforming what is and carrying out what might be. Or, who am I/We? How do I/We know? And, what the fuck must I/We do about it?

Rap between the Consciousness of the Lumpenproletariat Stance (R&BCLPS)

“To learn means to be a changed as a person” wrote Stetsenko (2017). She goes on:

What is added to this position from the [transformative activist stance] is an expanded understanding of what it means to be changed as a person. Based in the ideas that people are makers who are made by their own making of social community practices, the notion of personhood/identity is specified in stating that to be changed as a person is only possible through the process of taking a stand on what is going on in the world and instigating changes in it—and this is oneself as a social actor. This is indicative of an understanding that is deeply personally meaningful and always contingent on a stand one takes—as is hinted at by the word ‘under-stand.’ Importantly, this is not about beyond cognitive rationality and toward the psychological, emotional, and ethical experiences as often assumed…but, rather about revealing how cognitive rationality is always merged with psychological, emotional, and ethical experiences —unless special efforts are taken to turn meaningful understanding and knowing into a mechanical, dehumanized, computer-like tossing of neutral facts and mental schemas. (p. 328)

The aim throughout my research has been to make clear the workings of “special efforts” and refute mechanical, dehumanizing, and computer-like standardization of music teacher education, as stated in the beginning “I, Deejay Robinson a Black-queer doctoral

283 student and teacher educator-researcher (DTER) am concerned with the immediate improvement of our practice.” Chapter II’s literature review then help to conclude many

21st century innovative pedagogies support individual stances with individual outcomes bypassing agency to interdependently make change. However, when teacher and students enwrap—that means a naming and implication of identities and cultural wealth through dialogical interactions—music classrooms can be spaces where individual and collective agency instigates transformation of normative discourses of schools and schooling.

Rendering and analysis of composite narratives, episodes, and scenes then allowed me to discover that it is students (e.g. second grader in Chapter IV, college students in Chapter

V, and myself as a graduate student in IV and V) whom co-create ethical social community practices through emotional and psychological stated sense making of ethical experiences. In this light, agency in the analyses is framed as active, collaborative, and relational to individual development as interdependently “contingent on gaining the tools of acting at the nexus of the world while being shaped by it” (Stetsenko, 2017, pp. 225-

226).

Underlying this musical dialogical recomposing of student and teacher positionality outlined above, and as presented in Chapter II, is a stance releasing students and teacher from fear-based narratives (Emdin, 2016) enabling all to bring whole selves to the classroom teaching and learning discursively. Especially classrooms where multiple racial, ethnic, linguistic, and sexual orientation identities are muddle with history, crafting a rapping cogenerative and coteaching stance then subverts the power dynamics in music teacher education by framing the Lumpenproletariat in assets. In order to experience the brilliance of the Lumpenproletariat and be willing to learn from them,

284 an unapologetic value for their cultural wealth is homebase. Conversely, cultural wealth is not confined only to the Lumpenproletariat, as in those with power also employ cultural tools to maintain and/or manipulate interests and privileges. It is therefore necessary for an ethos of imperfectly perfect or implicated experts that celebrates complexities in order to engage R&BCLPS. Furthermore, enacting R&BCLPS requires a valuing of the different ways of knowing and approaches to teaching and learning. This value comes from a process of perpetual feedback and evaluation. Meaning, as educational policy researchers Larson and Ovando (2001) suggested, “if we are to establish more equitable systems of education in diverse communities, we will have to deinstitutionalize many of the logics and patters that sustain inequity in schools today” (p.

165). Or, our interlocking history matters, race matters (even Whiteness), justice matters, and language matters (Annamma and Winn, 2019).

My aim here is not to complicate the conclusion, but to present this dissertation as further in line with Ellis et al., (2019) frameworks for innovation in (music) teacher education as outlined in Chapter II. In fact, much recent research in teacher education has begun to deeply investigate the implications of research findings for (music) teaching, curriculum, policy, and further research with, on, and/or for growing student diversity.

Focusing on merging music teacher education research with teacher education research writ large, I have discovered that studies from the wider teacher education field share connections with some of my work that I will summarize below. I do so in order to

“present where the work in this dissertation lies in the spectrum of comparable research”

(Emdin, 2007, p. 223) and to deepen findings to public connection tenet of self-study practices in teacher education (Loughran et al., 2004).

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Implications of the Study

(Music) Education Policy

Larson and Ovando (2001) The color of bureaucracy documents numerous research studies of educational practitioners problematizing public policy in schools serving majority communities of color. Merging media stories of racists conflicts occurred in schools, the research outlined how the social community (e.g. Black pastors and activists) joined together with the school community (e.g. administrators, board members and city counselors/legislators) to investigate how these factors impact social, emotional, and physical stability and safety of students and communities of color.

Collective sensemaking led to a repositioning of closed bureaucratic systems to openings of “seeing schools through children’s eyes” (p. 173) challenging state and national control in local education. Similarly, Mac Naughton and Davis (2009) thoroughly reviewed decades of education, sociology, and psychology research studies disputing normative conceptions of racial innocence and conflict-free early childhood classrooms cultivated through colonial constructions of curriculum and the cultural misalignments building interactions, identity, politics, and pedagogy.

Lytle, Lytle, Johanek and Rho (2018) describes how eleven school-based leaders

(e.g. teachers, charter school administrators, directors of research) positioned conflict arising from interactions as a collective means to use inquiry-based learning to solve problems of policy while coping with the complexities of teaching and learning. Two studies are specific to New York City. Cully (2018) as a female director of research at an

286 all-boys school gathered a group of female faculty, cafeteria, maintenance, and support staff to make sense of her understanding of how gender is constructed at what are the potential limitations to understandings of gender within the schools context. And, Speller

(2018) investigated her charter schools curricula shortcomings in preparing Black high school seniors for college retention beyond sophomore year. Her collaborative inquiry- based conversations with former students and parents as well as current teachers revealed the need for demystification of academic expectations (i.e. specific ways to study and manage time) while holding high academic expectations through rigorous pre-college course curricula providing spaces for students to fail and grow with support. In these studies, educational practitioners inquiring about blockades between normative discourses and lived experiences bind the research as authors work with others—directly implicated in the situated context—to interrogate and co-create ways to bridge them.

The generative themes explored in the work of each of the researchers above resonate (Radano, 2004) in my dissertation. Their work to uncover the ways in which normative discourses frame and position lived experiences are at the heart of the issues that plague music teacher education. With their focus on dialogue and culture and the relationships to teaching and learning, their respective engagements with conflicts and analyses become essential to bridging disconnects in the music teacher education educational debt (Ladson-Billings, 2009b) for students and teachers of color in urban settings. I acknowledge the brilliant work of the researchers, many of whom published research from their dissertation findings, and reference their scholarship due to the significance of the outcomes on my research. However, in this dissertation, I present new tools for music teacher education that have not been previously explored; or, I recanvas

287 tools normally framed from a White gaze shadowing Black brilliance. That is, I also focus on conflicts within music teacher education that have been traditionally silenced.

Tools for ethical research practice were presented in Chapter II with the creation of an Afrocentric framework for music teaching and learning; and, a philosophical postcolonial positioning of people of color as Lumpenproletariat. These tools serve as frames and positions for ethical research and teaching and learning practices centering the agency and brilliance of the oppressed. While music teacher education research has seen growth in the use of fashioning new theoretical frameworks to meet the needs of a diversity of learners, none have combined critical race theories, critical pedagogy, and postcolonial theories providing a race-conscious reading of research and literature to understand the historical and contemporary epistemologies centered in music and music education. I have engaged own my research, I have found that critical race theory and critical pedagogy encourages naming ones reality; and, when combined with postcolonial theories, one is able to speak up and speak out against the purported neutrality of music from a deeply ethnomusicological perspective. In this way, my Afrocentric shifting of the music and music education epistemological compass breathes spaces for students and teacher voices, perspectives, and experiences to be purposefully and intentionally centered in practice. Once students cultural wealth is named and centered, opportunities for shared responsibility in co-creating good teaching practices in the classroom became evident, and is necessary in this dawning of a demographic shift.

Additionally, Chapter II revealed the centering of Whiteness in music teacher education licensure exams that systematically excluded epistemologies and bodies of color. Said differently, current paths to licensure and administration of licensure exams

288 ensure proliferations of White teachers and Eurocentric knowledge bases that have historically harmed Black and Brown teachers and students. If education is to become a more just, equitable, and ethical practice, then intentional restructuring of paths to becoming an educator must be realized. In a society where Whites are becoming the minority, testing the goodness of teachers and teaching in Eurocentric ways of knowing and practicing is to be complicit in sustaining notions of White supremacy. This racist practice of assimilation must end.

(Music) Teacher Education Research

In Chapter III, I presented autoethnographic m(ode) as a new ethnographic tool for researchers to musically narrate, frame, and agentively position ones lived experiences (in relationship with others) situated within a bounded historical, sociocultural, and political setting. I believe continued use of this tool is not only important for music education researchers, but is valuable for students, educators, and soon-to-be educators to use in their excavations of professional and personal identity in relation to the social fields in which they engage. This analytical and evocative theoretical (theatrical) and methodological approach to narrative inquiry in the classroom was provided to students and it worked to make clear blockades demarcated by merging lived experiences with normative discourses that traditionally create divides between researchers and practitioners. This is documented in Chapter II; meaning, research in

(music) teacher education has not adequately focused on developing knowledge about what teachers should know and be able to do to promote well-being for communities of color. To be clear: only a person who has experienced the racism of music education can

289 aptly explore its situated nuances, depth, and harm in order to ethically and empirically right its wrongs as a matter of justice. We people of color are brilliant and (w)hold(e) the knowledge to take up this call. Dead ass. Frfr. Yuuuherrrdt?!

I do believe other ethnographic approaches could provide similar results if presented to students with the three previous theoretical lenses. Yet, the ability to “clarify and identify issues within the classroom” (Emdin, 2007, p. 225) with the addition of making autoethnography sing, that is to make writing and research an extension of ones art as rigorous tenacity to merge theory and practice, is essential to agentively framing and positioning subject in assets with authority to engage rigorous and creative research to transform oppressive situations.

Moreover, research on curricula and curriculum development is imperative because composers, music, and theories studied in classrooms and lecture halls often coincide with epistemologies connected to the pinnacle of slavery and American colonialism. That being, (music) education researchers must not only trouble what is represented and which repertoires are centered in studies; but, actively and intentional engage historical contexts of Afrocentric music and the essentiality of elders and ancestors as providing guidance to cogenerating curriculum with youth and children. This entails eradicating Master teachers and emancipating youth and children of color to lead the way.

Early Childhood and Elementary (Music) Teacher Education

The pearl in Chapter IV focused on home. Meaning, tools for the inclusion of

Afrocentric epistemologies; tellings and lived experiences of ancestors and spirits are a

290 means to “obtain culture brokering between out-of-school and in-school worlds” (Emdin,

2007, p. 225) in order to cope and make sense of oppression. For BIPOC who had their history appropriated, erased, and/or mischaracterized, conjuring up ancestral and spiritual knowledge became paramount to situating self within the continuum of past, present, and future. This gem is of high value because communication is a representation of identity.

Ethical teaching and learning with and/or on culturally diverse students will not be known without dialogically seeking peoples of color brilliant discursive practices (albeit some contentious), including but not limited to Afrocentric music, fashion, and language.

Celebrating and valuing bodies and voices of color as mirrors and windows in curriculum and discourse must be groundbase. To be clear, for a crux of the matter is here: It is imperative both individuals and institutions must attend to academic, economic, intellectual, and psychological developments while being held accountable and responsible for the emotional, physical, and psychological well-being of bodies of color in their care. Otherwise, education becomes complicit in training of slaves, not teaching and learning with students. That is, insularity in curricula and teachers harms people of color from the mirrors and models needed to construct and reconstruct our full humanity so windows can be opened for all of us to breathe new equitable realities.

Just as important, this dissertation has shown how police and policing in schools is an extension of colonialism producing “docile bodies that cannot challenge the ruling state, cannot lead the inevitable bloody revolt” (Hill, 2016, p. 132). Yet, BIPOC have never been as docile as Whites have framed us to be. And, records of revolts, revolutions, and uprising prove this point to be true. In this light, policing and police in schools and schooling must end. Get em’ out! And/or, turn its attention to the actual impact and

291 intention of terrorists tools (including emotive) and threats of oppression and violence penetrating Black folx. Meaning we must ask “protecting what?”, “by what means necessary?” and, “at what costs to and/or for whom?” To do less is to be complicit in sustaining White supremacy blockading human rights to pursue liberty and justice for all.

As I wrote my story, I was able to learn this significance can only be achieved when

Afrocentric epistemologies are thoroughly entwined with theory and practice. Said succinctly, there would be no police in postcolonial schools.

In Chapter V, I took lessons from the autoethnography and studied-self teaching a music teacher education course for non-music majors at primarily-Hispanic serving public college. In this setting, I positioned conflict, Hip Hop cyphers, and co-teaching to explore how normative discourses position soon-to-be teachers while ensuring the development of music education, early childhood, and elementary education content knowledge. Here we uncloaked tools of White supremacy, supported by research, that craft emotional space and physical place of urbans schools as mirror to Whiteness. In doing so, I was able to demonstrate how blockades within normative discourses of music teacher education interact and impact framing and grammatical agency of a class of majority women of color (and some White ones too). By analyzing words and not people, in this dissertation, CNA in music education research, becomes vital, or, vida (life) to foster critical development of individuals and collectives to trouble and transform institutional discourses, as opposed to uncritically embracing and recycling oppressive situations.

Moreover, we must come to detect and deter the discourses of “learned ignoramus” (Freire, 1998, p. xvii), people who achieved highest level of mastery via a

292 specialization (i.e. music teacher education) but is solely concerned with protecting their narrow view of the world. This must be done, or else the safety, well-being, and humanity of students and communities of color (and some White ones too) will continue to be in peril. Both the notion of framing and grammatical agency (the subjective power to engage with, makes sense of, and transcend oppressive structures) are tools that have yet to be introduced in music teacher education research. And, have been utmost illuminating throughout this dissertation.

In essence, I present three major points (Emdin, 2007) or lessons for the exploration of music and music teacher education by dovetailing three critical theatrical frameworks (critical race theories, critical pedagogy, postcolonial theories) composing: a new Afrocentric theoretical framework (Go fo’ Broke), a new ethnographic tool

(Autoethnographic M(ode)), and a dialogical pedagogy (R&BCLPS), a deeply sophisticated but “necessary ethical approach to research and multiple research outcomes” (Emdin, 2007, p. 226) of good teaching with students of color. It is now up to us to celebrate, interrogate, and complicate these offerings in order to make sense of how this work might inform and impact schools and schooling; an audacious, risky, rigorous, and tedious task, for those willing to be triumphant over turbulent discourses.

Limitations and Final Thoughts

In line with tenets of S-STEP, I do not expect this research to involve large scale change in music teacher education research and/or school curricula. And, I may never know the long-term shaping MUSIC 3000 had on the pedagogies of students. Rather, in

293 this dissertation, I focused on benefits explored when ethical and good teaching is co- constructed centering the cultural wealth of communities of color. I also implore triangulation of critical race theories, critical pedagogy, and postcolonial theories as approaches to be looked at as a trifecta for studying music and music teacher education.

And in so doing, I join in the lyrics of James Weldon Johnson’s Negro National anthem, inspiring us to:

Lift ev’ry voice and sing,

Til earth and heaven rings,

Ring with the harmonies of liberty.

Let our rejoicing rise,

High as the listening skies,

Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Just as the historical and research framings of Chapters I through III “sings a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,” renderings of the research study in Chapters

IV and V, “sings a song a full of the hope that the present has brought us,” to the future, I hope to have shown the documented life stories and lived experiences of early childhood and elementary (music) educators of color across time and space is evidence that “facing the rising sun of a new day begun” in the explosion of color in schools and society, we will “march on til victory” ov’r White supremacy “is won.”

While this is a bounded autoethnographic study where critical theory and critical pedagogy situate individual lumpenproletariat lived experiences within a larger historical sociocultural and ecopolitical normative narratives documenting interactions with schools

294 and schooling. I too believe, like Fanon (1961) and a host of critical scholars, that individual experience is rooted in the collective,

since it is a link in the national chain, it ceases to be individual, narrow and limited in scope, and can lead to the truth of the nation and the world. Just as every fighter clung to the nation during the period of armed struggle, so during the period of nation building every citizen must continue in his daily purpose to embrace the nation as a whole, to embody the constantly dialectical truth of the nation, and to will here and now the triumph of [women, men, and theys] in [our] totality. (pp. 140-141)

Meaning, the experiences of the Lumpenproletariat in this work cannot speak for all oppressed peoples in the United States. However, our voices aim to corroborate

(Baldwin, 1957) and resonate (Radano, 2004) with the collective chorus of critical scholars seeking just and equitable teaching practices. In the critical tradition, I now offer this study as a situated historical study as means of linking the work and

Lumpenproletariat voices in a collective struggle and responsibility of every generation to perfect our nation.

295

CODA

(5:30 AM)

AmeriKKKa is the most violent country in the world. And, who owns it? White folks with their power and privilege to control and protect the $. So, in which direction does conflict, competition, and canonicalization really flow? To ignore this inconvenient truth to your power, is to be a learned ignoramus. For, learned ignoramus’ make moral monsters because their competitiveness reveals the weakness in the protection of power and privilege. Meaning, if you have to test, taint, and tear at my mind, body, culture, and spirit to teach, then you are a tyrant. To teach is to love, learning. To love learning is to take off titles and toil with the tenacity of students’ brilliance. That is, will you love me and teach me when I fail the test? Or will you tear me down to make yourself feel tall? Will you taint my name when I curse you out? Or listen to the (in)tension in my story? What terrorists’ tools will you use to maximize the tonalities betwixt us, to create a terrible sense of safety framing who we are, and positioning perceived paths of attainment. If your racism, colorism, and classism can’t take my pronouncements of proficiency Then, turn attention to your history, language, values, and Leave me out of it. Because, over all of the violent and vile things you have said and done unto me, I, am still here. We are still here. Only the best of the best can survive that. Now, who and what does that make you? Because love loves love loves learning. And to teach a love of learning, is to triumph over turbulence.

296

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Souto-Manning, M. (2014b). Critical narrative analysis: the interplay of critical discourse and narrative analyses. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 27(2), 159-180.

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Appendix A: Instruments of Data Collection

Feedback & Evaluation

•3 – Things you learned

•2 – Comments

•1 – Question

Henderson & RESI (2018)

At the end of each class, students complete this feedback and evaluation by responding to the items in the blue box. Students write their responses (with or without name) on a blank sheet paper. DTER collects responses at the end of the class. Then, student responses for each point is compiled (sans student names) into a single Microsoft Word document entitled: Feedback and Evaluation Form. Individual responses are then recycled; and, the form uploaded to the Dissertation Team drive.

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Feedback and Evaluation Form Template

Date:

- - -

3 things I learned:

- - -

2 comments:

- - - 1 question:

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Appendix B: Rap Sheet Template

Rap Sheet Tuesday October 29, 2019 Times New Roman: Class Interactions Week 10 Italics Times New Roman: In-time comments and inquiries Calibri: After class audio reflections

Student Context, Inquiry & Interaction Teacher Context, Inquiry & Interactions

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Appendix C: Data Analysis Example

Rap Sheet Tuesday August 27, 2019 Times New Roman: Class Interactions Week 1 Italics Times New Roman: In-time comments and inquiries Calibri: After class audio reflections

Student Context, Inquiry & Interaction Teacher Context, Inquiry & Interactions (1:28:37) D: We are getting close to our break time. But before we do that, I want to give us all some context. Thinking of the response you all just gave about why you all have come to this field of education. I want to give us some context about where we are right now. So, use what you heard our colleagues say. Use what you just wrote down to give some context to these numbers. Cause numbers are just numbers. I am asking you to bring your lived experiences to these numbers.

Bobbing and weaving again. Connecting what’s before to what is next and also the local into the state. I go on to give an overview of the State of Play, which I describe as an overview of the field of education.

D: Why is it that in 2019 schools are still segregated? We are going to figure it out. So, when I think about why teaching. I always think about my students. This is a picture of my students. It was my second or third year teaching. We sang the national anthem in Fenway Park. I taught music for years up in Boston Public Schools before moving here. So I want you think about what you just wrote down. Think about the data and we are going to watch a video. I want you to think about the young men in this video, and there are two things: What are something in the video that those kids talk about their experiences, that you as an upcoming teacher feel like you have to

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fight for. What are something in the video of these kids talking about their experiences that you feel like you have to fight against? Any questions, let’s watch it.

(1:41:08) D: Alright, this is the last thing we are going to do before break. Within your tables, 10 minutes to discuss something (1:44:37) another table (USL) that you heard, saw. Cause I saw S1: Make the change. something in how they reacted. Things to S2: Like it has to start from the top. Like fight for? Things to fight against. I will if the administrators are enforcing that, put some paper here so if anyone wants to then it can trickle down to the teachers take notes for the table, so that I can look then we’re all gonna be making the at those. And we’ll take a 15 minute break change. after this. S3 (Asian): (shaking her head) I feel like that will never happen. S1: Yeah like, the thing is… S3: This is such a capitalist society that we are living now. They don’t give a shit about what the fuck the kids feel. It’s all about the money at the end of the day. They don’t care. But us as teachers got to make the change at least with our Problematizing of students, you know. capitalism as (a) top down approach, (b) S1: Like even one class you know, as not caring about cheesy as that sounds. One class you students, (c) rooted in know can, and it keeps spreading like a financial gain. virus. D: In that case then, I am going to push Also, recognizing lower status back cause that we are here, its apart of individuals as not our touchstones, you know. I am having the power to wondering, because (nodding toward S2) create collective you have said that change starts at the top. change. And, that But now, what you’re talking about is like power for change rests with individuals S2: The opposite. (interrupting) acting on their own. D: Yeah! So how do we, you all, no we cause I am in it with you, reconcile that, with this idea of a capitalist society that has gotten you (nodding to S3) angry. S3: Yeah. D: You know. And that’s fine. Be angry. Cause I am angry too!

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And this is what I do, I will drop bombs and leave (student laughter). Nah, I will come back and check on you too, but like you ignore what I say and talk about something else. It’s just getting us to do conversation and stuff. It’s really interesting I like that you brought that up.

The emotion and passion in the Asian students voice inspired and astounded me. She was so direct with her analysis. This is the same students that came into the classroom at 8:30. Moreover, S2 realized her own words of thinking change started at the top might not be in line individual classes making change. This group of women were able to problematize capitalism and its impact on education, as well as recognize that individual teachers in classes and students can make the change needed. I also was being transparent about the process too, naming what I do. And affirmed the student’s anger and joined her

Oh my student who was angry. That. Was. Dope. Yeah to see her share the way she did about capitalism, as I was sitting beside her. It was just real, open, raw emotion that, I don’t know. It’s beautiful. And that was an Asian female.

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Appendix D: MUSIC 3000 Course Syllabus

MUSIC 300061: Music for Children Elementary School Professor Deejay Robinson [email protected]

Fall 2019 Tuesdays 9:00-11:50

Office Hours Tuesday. E-mail professor to schedule an appointment

Course Description

This course is designed to prepare early childhood (EC) and elementary teachers with frameworks to incorporate music into classroom teaching and learning. We begin by analyzing research on EC and elementary music education and considering how the field is framed primarily in the U.S. We then use past research to examine historical and sociopolitical makings of music in schools. Research is then merged with students’ lived experiences in order to research, design, and implement an interdisciplinary curricula unit—featuring music as a tool for complicating, expanding, and reimaging the classroom.

Course Concepts • Critically examine and analyze the makings of music and music education within society and school, • Articulate elements of music in content-specific language and every-day talk, • Develop and strengthen skills and practices needed for embedding music teaching and learning in the early childhood/elementary curriculum, • Co-create, play, and perform music written by self and others, • Individually design a lesson plan; and co-design a unit of study as well as co- teach with feedback from peers and professor.

Required Materials

61 The syllabus for this course was initially designed by Professor Emily John (Queens College). Its expanded/revised version benefited from the research and course materials from Dr. Mariana Souto-Manning (Teachers College Columbia University); Dr. Randall Everett Allsup (Teachers College Columbia University); Dr. Karin S. Hendricks (Boston University) Charlyn Henderson (Teachers College Columbia University) and Phillip Smith (Teachers College Columbia University).

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*Au, Brown, and Calderón (2016) Reclaiming the Multicultural Roots of U.S. Curriculum. *Multicultural or skin tone colored pencils, crayons, and/or markers, * Something for collecting class artifacts and taking notes, *Subscription to online music streaming, *Sound sources (materials for making music/sound) for certain projects—and will be explained in advance.

Outline of Course Sessions subject to change

UNIT ONE: Ethnography of Self and Others Guiding Questions: Who is in this class and what do we bring? What are our individual experiences and histories as P-12 students, college students, and future teachers? What most interest us about music, music education, and EC/elementary education that’s important in today’s context?

Topics Readings/Homework Assignment 1 Setting the Stage Baldwin, J. (2009). Sonny’s Blues. In The jazz fiction anthology. E. S. Feinstein & D. Rife (Eds.), pp. 17- 48. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press Baldwin, J. (1963). A talk to teachers. In James Baldwin collected essays (pp.678-686) Boston, MA: Beacon Press

Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

2 Mirrors & ALL: Windows McCarthy, M. (2007). Narrative inquiry as a way of knowing in music education. Research Studies in Music Education, 29(1), 3-12. John et al., (2016). Creative musical play: An innovative approach to early childhood music education in an urban community school of music. Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education, 15(3), 21-36.

CHOOSE ONE:

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Tschida, C. M., Ryan, C. L., & Ticknor A. S. (2014). Building on windows and mirrors: Encouraging the disruption of “singe stories” through children’s literature. Journal of Children’s Literature, 40(1), 28-39 Souto-Manning, M., & Lanza, A. (2019). Pedagogical third spaces: Inclusion and re-presentation of LGBTQ communities in and through teaching as a matter of justice. Theory into Practice, 58(1), 39-50.

3 Narrative Projects Work Day 4 Narrative Projects Goodwin, A. L., Cheruvu, R., & Genishi, C. Assignment Sharing (2008). Responding to multiple DUE: diversities in early childhood Prompt: Find education. In C. Genishi & A. L. a song that is Goodwin (Eds.)., Diversities in early of childhood education: Rethinking significance and doing (pp. 3-10). New York, to you, NY: Routledge. specifically Young, S. (2016). Early childhood music one that you education research: An overview. enjoy singing Research Studies in Music or playing. Education, 38(1), 9-21. Write a 5- Bond, V. (2015). Sounds to share: The state page paper of music education in three Reggio relating the Emilia-inspired North American song to the preschools. Journal of Research in literature Music Education, 62(4), 462-484 (____) and your lived experience.

UNIT TWO: Urban Music Education, Practices, Problems, & Promises Guiding Questions: What is the research on early childhood/elementary music and music education? Whose interests are centered in traditional approaches to EC and elementary music teaching and learning practices? What are the potential problems? What frameworks reveal transformative changes needed for culturally, ethnically, and racially diverse populations of students?

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Topics Readings Assignment 4 State of Play SXSW EDU, SXSW EDU. (2017, March 6). Christopher Emdin SXSWedu 2017 keynote. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= XbBwM1c-6xM&t=765s

A Tribe Called Quest: We got it from here…Thank you for your service

5 What have Souto-Manning, M. (2014). Making a stink others done? about the “ideal: classroom: Theorizing and storying conflict in early childhood education. Urban Education, 49(6), 607-634. Love, B. L. (2015). What is hip-hop-based education doing in a nice field such as early childhood and elementary education? Urban Education, 50(1), 103-131.

8 Conflict ALL: Au, W., Brown, A. L., & Calderón. (2016). Reclaiming the multicultural roots of U.S. curriculum: Communities of color and official knowledge in education. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

CHOOSE 2: Brand, M. (1986). Relationship between home musical environment and

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selected musical attributes of second-grade children. Journal of Research in Music Education, 34(2), 111-119. Perry, J. C., & Perry, I. W. (1986). Effects of exposure to classical music on the musical preferences of preschool children. Journal of Research in Music Education, 34(1)m 24-33. Hall, J. (2000). SINGING OFF KEY: A racial critique of elementary school songbooks. Urban Education, 35(2), 221-231. Feay-Shaw, S. (2002). The music of Mexican-Americans: A historical perspective of a forgotten culture in American music education. Journal of Historical Research in Music Education, 24(1), 83-102.

9 Musical ALL: Analysis Ladson-Billings, G. (2009). We are family (pp. 59-84) The dream keepers. (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey- Bass. CHOOSE ONE: Emdin, C. (2016). Camaraderie (pp. 17-30). For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood…and the Rest of Y’all Too. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Emdin, C. (2016). Chuuurch. (pp. 44-60). For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood…and the Rest of Y’all Too. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. 1 Remix 0 Projects Work Day 1 Remix Assignment DUE: 1 Projects Prompt: Write a 8- Sharing Day page narrative detailing your memory of music in and outside of school during EC & elementary years. Also provide

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possibilities for reimagining music in classroom curricula and connect your argument to the literature (____).

UNIT THREE: Unit Design Project Guiding Questions: What are methods for provocative, stimulating, and transformative music teaching and learning practices? What skills and practices are needed to design a unit of study that embeds music? How can you start thinking about composing your academic career as an elementary teacher? What obstacles stand in your way? What tools are available?

Topics Readings Assignment 1 Unit Design Picower, B. (2012). Using their own words: 2 Project & Six elements of social justice Work Day curriculum design for the elementary classroom. International Journal of Multicultural Education, 14(1), 1- 17. Robinson, D. (2017). A labor of love: A rationale and second grade music curriculum for a more just and equitable world. TOPICS for Music Education Praxis, 3(1), 75-116.

1 Work Day Assignment DUE: 3 Unit Abstract 1 Practice A 4 1 Work Day Assignment DUE: 5 Prompt: Draft of individual lesson plans 1 Practice B 6 1 Final Projects Assignment DUE: 7 Sharing Unit Design Project

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Course Assignments and Evaluation

Participation — 50% of final grade This course is rooted in collaborative work. Students will be expected to be fully present during class activities and discussions. Furthermore, students will have opportunities to compose music with others as well as engage in dialogue about the constructions race and racism within early childhood/elementary general and music education. Every voice, mind, and body is celebrated, respected, and valued as a member of our classroom community. We sustain and care for our community by consistently re-committing ourselves to hard work and dialogue in order to bring about the changes needed in United States education.

Attendance: Students are expected to attend all classes. Class participation (which accounts for half of your grade) requires attendance. More than two (2) absences without a doctor’s note will adversely impact your final grade.

Unit Design Project —30% of final grade Much of traditional curriculum is standardized and has the capacity to marginalize students, families, and communities of color. This final project is designed to give students an opportunity to co-design and co-teach an original unit of study with a clear topic/focus/question. This requires that music be embedded throughout the unit and each individual lesson.

Envisioning your future school and its community, grade-level/content teaching team, and classroom: identify a question and/or topic (related to race and racism) the team wants to pose. Then work together to design a unit (theme/topic, guiding questions, state content standards & national music standards, readings/books/literature, assignments/assessment). Each student is responsible for creating a lesson plan that is connected to the groups unit map. Each group will teach-share a 40 minute lesson during the final day of the course. While you are welcomed to rely on course readings, you will likely need to delve beyond MUSIC 3000 literature and into content areas (e.g. math) to adequately research and complete the unit design project.

Items to be assessed: Unit Map Individual Lesson Plan (30 minutes) Final Group Lesson Share (40 minutes of group teaching) Group Research Paper Individual Reflection Paper

*specific details with handouts will be made available during the November 12th session*

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Writing/Creating Prompts — 20% of final grade Please write a reflection to the prompt listed in the syllabus. These prompts will count towards 20% of your final grade and will be evaluated based on the paper’s analytical depth, thoroughness, and effect of the reflection—Did your reflection cause you to see something or someone in a new way?—Or, is there clear documentation of a transformation in thinking that will lead to a change in practice. Specific details for each paper will be given during class.

All written work must be typed, double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman font, & 1- inch margins.

Written work/assignments must be PRINTED and submitted at the beginning of the class. Please attend class even if the assignment is incomplete or will not be turned in.

Late /Makeup Work: Speak with Professor Deejay if you feel there are valid reasons for late work. Certain circumstances may require an assignment to be revised. Professor Deejay will articulate those circumstance if necessary.

CUNY Policy on Academic Dishonesty Our task is to create, (re)think, and/or (re)imagine music in curriculum. Not replicate works of others. Therefore, all work submitted must be your original work! Any incident of plagiarism will result in a zero for the assignment. Cite any text (including song lyrics/music) or idea taken from sources (e.g. websites, books, online articles, newspapers, PowerPoint presentations).

(School-wide policy here)

Reasonable Accommodations for Candidates with Disabilities

(college-wide policy here)

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Sexual Harassment and Violence Reporting

(college-wide policy here)

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Appendix E: Sample MUSIC 3000 Syllabus

Music for Children: Elementary School Music 3000 - Fall 2018

Instructor: Email:

Class Hours: Monday and Wednesday, 140-255pm, Room 214 Office Hours – by appointment, Monday or Wednesday during free hour

Course Description: This course is designed to support the aspiring elementary educator in incorporating music into all aspects of classroom teaching. Through developing listening lessons, learning and teaching songs, creating interdisciplinary connections and improving research/resource skills, students will build a library of lesson plans, ideas and concepts to use in teaching.

Required Materials Access to Blackboard – you must log on to Blackboard regularly for assignments, readings and updated information.

3-ring binder with dividers to organize all handouts

Songbook – provided in the course

Course Concepts: • Singing and teaching songs • Rhythmic speech • Listening to music and analyzing music for use in classroom • Designing listening lessons • Music in Cultural Context • Using music for classroom management • Music Integration in Core subjects in the Elementary classroom

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Classroom Etiquette: Remain in class for the duration of the class period.

No cellphone use (including texting or checking the time) during class.

When taking notes, you may not take screen shots (unless invited to).

Please be sure your phone is silenced during the class period.

Attendance: Students are expected to attend all classes. Class participation, which accounts for part of your grade, requires attendance. More than two absences without a doctor’s note may adversely affect your final grade.

Written Work and Plagiarism: Plagiarism is an EXTREMELY serious offense; any incident of plagiarism or academic dishonesty will result in a zero for that assignment. All work submitted must be your original work. ANY text or idea taken from an outside source, including websites, must be carefully cited. Any incorporation of another person’s work without acknowledging that person and/or source is plagiarism. For more information see http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/writing/history/plagiarism/index.html

All written work must be your original work and any quotes must be cited. Any research (even from Wikipedia) must include the website.

All written work should be typed, double-spaced, 12 point non-decorative font.

Assignments submitted after the class in which they are due will not be accepted without a doctor’s note or documentation. Do not skip class or come late to complete your work. It is better to attend class and submit an incomplete assignment. If you feel you have a valid reason for late work, see [professor name]/

Assignments should be printed and brought to class – they should not be emailed to [professor name] (unless indicated). Please plan ahead so that your printer is working and that you have sufficient ink and paper.

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BE FULLY PRESENT ☺

Assignments/Grading

Listen and Respond, NYS Research, Concert Attendance, other small assignments 25%

Large Assignments: Listening Lessons, Country project, Chapter Book Soundtrack and Literature assignment 25%

Class Participation and In-class assignments 25%

Final Project (Resource Binder) 25%

Americans with disabilities act:

[college-wide Policy here]

Late work/makeup work If an assignment is misunderstood I will often offer a chance for you to “makeup” or “redo” the assignment. If I return something to you, it must be resubmitted within a week of when it’s returned to you. To earn additional credit, resubmit the original work and the revised work. After one week, you may not resubmit.

In general I don’t accept late work. Much of the work you do in this course builds on previous material, so if you are completing assignments concurrently that should have been done sequentially you are limiting your learning. For extenuating circumstances, individual arrangements will be made.

All class listings and assignments are subject to change.

Date TOPIC OF CLASS Assigned Homework/Reading class 1 Uses of Music Read article packet – annotate M 8/27 Syllabus and select quote to share in Arts Integration class. Be ready to discuss in class on 8/29 Class 2 Why to listen Listen and Respond #1 – due W 8/29 How to listen 9/5 Article discussion Class 3 Listening Assignments and Concepts Read “Shared Songs” article by W 9/5 9/12

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Listen and Respond #2 due 9/17

Listening Lesson #1 assigned – due 9/24 Class 4 Go over YouTube links and how to YouTube worksheet due 9/17 W 9/12 research Music and Emotions – Music for Healing Listening Lesson example

Class 5 Listening Lesson example Finish Listening Lesson due M 9/17 Instructional Songs Concept 9/24

Work on instructional song due 9/24

Class 6 Instructional Songs Presentations Listen and Respond #3 due 10/1 M 9/24 Group Brainstorm Read “Boys at the Back” article

Class 7 Dance Party Start a list of dance party songs W 9/26 Instructional Songs Choose book for Chapter book assignment Due 10/17

Class 8 Types of Integration Listen and Respond #4 due M 10/1 10/10 Class 9 Music and story – Being a Leader Continue previous assignments W 10/3 Class 10 Homophones Bring a picture book to class W 10/10 10/15 Class 11 Literary Connections Read Article – the Sole of a M 10/15 Teacher

Finish Chapter book Soundtrack – due 10/17

Class 12 Research Skills and discuss article Work on literature assignment W 10/17 due 11/5 Rosenthal – finding books for literature assignment Class 13 History connections Listen and Respond #5 – due M 10/22 10/29

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Class 14 Listening Maps and Circle Games Listening Lesson #2 – due 11/7 W 10/24 Class 15 Poetry Continue previous assignments M 10/29 Questions about Final project

Class 16 Symphonic poems Continue previous assignments W 10/31 Class 17 Country project Cultural Heritage worksheet M 11/5 due 11/7 American folkmusic

Then go to Rosenthal library juvenile section Class 18 Cultural connections Country Project W 11/7 Listening Lesson Packet example Listening Lesson #3 Listen and Respond #6 – due 11/14 Class 19 Experiments in Life Continue previous assignments M 11/12 Class 20 Science Explorations Continue previous assignments W 11/14 Class 21 Music as modality, Project discussion, Country project, final project M 11/19 catch-up as needed etc. Class 22 Math Connections Etc. W 11/21 Class 23 Eras, Dates and research Etc. M 11/26

Class 24 Finish timeline Work on presentation and final W 11/28 Whales – Fantasia project

Class 25 Folktales, etc. - Baba Yaga and Work on final project M 12/3 Sorcerer’s Apprentice Due 12/5 Class 26 Favorite idea project presentations W 12/5 Class 27 Favorite idea project presentations M 12/10 Class 28 Favorite idea project presentations W 12/12

Due Dates for Fall 2018 There will be other small assignments and readings, but this list covers the majority of the assignments for the semester. You are responsible for all assignments, not just what is listed here. Check Blackboard and pay attention in class for current information.

This list is for reference only, dates and assignments are subject to change.

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Listen and Respond #1 – due on Sept 5, 2018

Listen and Respond #2 – due on Sept 17. 2018

YouTube Worksheet – due on Sept 17, 2018

Instructional Song with new words due on Sept 24, 2018

Listening Lesson #1 – due on Sept 24, 2018

Listen and Respond #3 – due on Oct 1, 2018

Listen and Respond #4 – due on Oct 10, 2018

Chapter Book Soundtrack – due on Oct 17. 2018

Listen and Respond #5 – due on Oct 29. 2018

Literature Assignment – due on Nov 5, 2017

Listening Lesson #2 – due on November 7. 2018

Cultural Heritage Worksheet – due on November 7. 2018

Listen and Respond #6 – due on November 14, 2018

Country Project – due on November 19. 2018

Listening Lesson #3 – due on November 26. 2018

Favorite idea project presentation – in class on December 5, 10, or 12

Final Project – Resource Binder – due on December 5, 2018

MUS 261 Final Project Overview

Required

Listening Library (this should include EVERY piece we have dealt with in class – each piece that you have done an assignment on as well as any piece that we listened to or worked with). Your list must include the composer, title, and thoughts about the piece, possible connections or your recollections of the music. These should be organized in some fashion (alphabetized by title or composer’s last name.)

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Book List (this should include EVERY book we have worked with in class – all the books you have used for assignments as well as books from songs in the songbook that you have explored or other books that you think are appropriate.) List must include title, author, approximate grade/age level and comments

Music as Modality – list general ways that music is used in the classroom – there should be at least 10 concepts

Dance Party list – a list of songs that are appropriate for movement (whether singing or recorded.)

Then, take all the information from class – every handout, all your notes, examples of assignments etc. and organize them into either categories (science, animals, literature) or grades levels or concepts (listening lessons, games, books).

Do not include my assignments (unless they are examples), the syllabus or extraneous information.

The goal is that you have taken everything presented in class and turned it into a resource binder that will make it quite easy for you to use when you are teaching.

Note: this should not be a typical “end-of-semester” binder where all your handouts from class are shoved into a notebook. This needs to be a carefully curated and organized resource binder that includes everything from class as well as thoughts, articles, concepts and materials you have found beyond what we have done in class.

Suggestions for tracking your information through the semester for a successful final project.

1. Take Notes in every class - once a week, type your notes into an organized fashion, possibly putting information into categories or grades.

Note – much of the information in class is presented in Powerpoint and lecture and you are expected to glean what’s important for your own notes. You need to take notes in class, not take screenshots.

2. Keep ongoing lists of pieces we listen to, books we use, dance party music you hear etc.

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3. Ask questions – talk with each other, contribute in class discussions and ask me for information so that you can expand your own thoughts. Take notes from the ideas you share with each other.

4. For each assignment you work on, consider listening to an extra piece (to add to the listening list) or going beyond the “Basics” so that you are truly thinking about how to integrate music effectively in any teaching opportunity.

5. Observe children – go to a library storytime, attend a daycare class, or school session, notice playing in parks etc. and work to develop your sense of what children do and what they are capable of.

6. Use thoughts, ideas and concepts from other class to connect to anything we discuss.

7. Listen to more “classical” music so that you have a broader experience of what to say and how to use this music in class. It offers amazing connections and opportunities for teaching,

8. Attend more concerts (you are required to attend one) - there are many free concerts at the school. Generate ideas from the music you hear, the students you see etc. and include these in your notes.

9. Use books to find additional information – do NOT rely exclusively on the internet to teach you about using music for children.

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Appendix F: Name Tent Activity